The Ladies' Room (30 page)

"The ugly. The way people acted at Gert's funeral. She was
a fine lady, and she deserved to be mourned properly. You
were the only one who was sad.

"The good. Gert leaving you the house so the hole in my
heart was filled up again"

I was amazed beyond words. That was good in his eyes.
He'd worked his fingers to the bone, and there was still work
to do.

"The bad. Today."

I raised an eyebrow. "Why was today bad for you?"

"Because when Crystal and I came into the house and
found you'd left without even touching your breakfast, I was
afraid you'd gone back to Drew. It was a long day for me, until
Crystal brought the truck home and told me what had happened"

He looked at his watch. "Ten, nine . .

He tossed off his blanket and held out a hand. I pushed aside
my own quilt and took his hand to go inside. We'd watched the
old year ebb out into history as the birth of a brand-new one
came sliding into home base.

He kept my hand in his and nodded toward the other side of
the lake, where fireworks lit up the dark sky. "Seven, six ..

"Five, four, three, two .. " He pulled me close and looked
deeply into my eyes, a faint smile on his face.

The man was going to kiss me. My thoughts were jumbled
and my mind frantic.

"One...

The kiss caused as many fireworks inside me as the ones
showing their glory across the lake. Then he hugged me tightly
and said, "Happy New Year, Trudy."

My ears were ringing so loudly, I wouldn't ever be completely sure what I said, or if I said anything. He kept my
hand in his-surprisingly, it fit there as if it had been formed especially for that purpose-and led me through the glass
doors into the living room.

"Good night. Sleep well." He leaned forward and brushed a
sweet kiss across my forehead that was as passionate as the
one on my lips.

I closed the door to the bedroom, sank down onto the bed,
and stared at the ceiling, looking for answers to questions I
couldn't even form. I began to rationalize. Billy Lee had
wanted the day to end on a nice note and had felt obligated to
give me the traditional New Year's kiss. There were just the
two of us at the house, and I'd had a bad day. He was a good
man and an almighty fine kisser.

I fanned my glowing face with the back of one hand. He'd
made my toes, my lips, and everything in between tingle in
ways it never had before. I wanted to kiss him again so badly,
it was a chore to keep the bedroom door shut.

The next morning I awoke to the aroma of coffee and bacon
but dreaded leaving the bedroom. I dressed slowly, made the
bed, and invented a dozen things to keep me from going out
into the kitchen to avoid the awkwardness that was sure to
hang in the air like cigarette smoke in a cheap bar. Finally I
opened the bedroom door and took a step out into the living
room.

Billy Lee was the same as always. "Good morning. I thought
I heard you up and around. Temperature is forty degrees, and
the sun is rising, so we'll have a lovely day. What would you
like to do with it?"

"Can we take the boat out and putter around the lake?" My
voice came out sounding normal. Maybe I'd only imagined
that he'd kissed me so passionately last night. Perhaps it was
just a dream and hadn't really happened at all. No, not even
my most vivid dream was that real.

"Sounds like a plan to me. I'll leave black-eyed peas cooking in the Crock-Pot, and we'll have them for supper. Have to
eat our peas and greens today if we're going to have good luck
all year. Did you bring a warm jacket? The wind can get cold
out there on the water."

"I did," I said.

"I'll take along a quilt just in case you get cold," he said.

That was my Billy Lee, always thinking about me, and I
loved it.

I set the table for two and found butter and jam in the refrigerator. Billy Lee had already whipped eggs for scrambling, and
biscuits were in the oven.

"I'd better eat a double portion of peas and greens," I mumbled.

"How many did you eat last year?"

"Not a single bite, but I'm not jinxing what w h a t . I stopped. I'd
almost said, "what we have"

I cleared my throat. "I'm not about to jinx any good luck
coming my way"

We had breakfast just as if we were at home in Tishomingo.
We talked about the cabinets Billy Lee was finishing for the
kitchen and the stain we planned to use. A rich cherry finish.
Not as red as mahogany, but something that would enhance
the grain and go with the white marble countertops. I could
already see starched white curtains on the windows and pots
of herbs on the sills.

It was as if we were two old, settled married people. Only
we weren't, and if that kiss from the night before was any indication of what being married to Billy Lee would be like, it
would be far from "settled," and there wouldn't be any dull
moments.

I wore a pair of jeans, a red turtleneck, and a zippered sweatshirt with a hood. The sun was warm, and Billy Lee tucked a
quilt around my legs so I was cozy as I propped myself up on
pillows and read an old LaVyrle Spencer romance book. I'd
read it at least a dozen times before, but it was like having tea
with an old friend: same friend, same tea, still good.

I sneaked peeks at Billy Lee all day. His blue eyes were
piercing, and I wanted to touch his hair. At that thought, high
color flooded my cheeks. I felt like I was too close to an open
fire. I went back to fiction; it was much safer than reality.

"You want the new baby to be a boy or girl?" he asked out
of the clear blue.

"I don't care which or one of each. It's been a long time since I've been around a baby. I'm looking forward to being a
grandma."

"You sure don't look old enough for that title," he said.

"You are blind."

"I wear contacts, and they make my sight perfect. I'm excited about the baby. I looked at plans for building cribs this
past week."

"You do too much"

He gave me another crooked grin and said, "I'll be the judge
of that, Trudy."

"Today, I'll let you be the judge," I said.

"Be careful. What happens on New Year's is what happens
all year long."

The kiss came to my mind immediately. I sure hoped he
was right.

By the time we ate supper and got back to Tishomingo, it
was fully dark. Crystal had left a note on the refrigerator that
she'd gone to the nursing home to visit Momma. With luck she
wouldn't be the cleaning lady that day or, worse yet, Marty or
Betsy. Billy Lee said he had to check on his cat and headed
out, leaving me to ponder the past two days over a cup of hot
chocolate.

Men are so frustrating; sometimes I think they really do
come from Mars. That's the planet where they take boy babies'
souls at birth to raise them with no feminine influence of any
kind. They use John Wayne as the primary role model and
make them mean and tough. Then they return their souls to
them when they start puberty. That's why they are so obsessed
with the female species at that time. After all, they've been living on Mars, where no such things exist.

For a whole month we went on with our routine. Billy Lee
started breakfast every morning. Crystal and I meandered in
when the aroma of coffee and bacon wafted up the stairs and
into our bedrooms. She set the table for three. I helped Billy
Lee finish cooking, and we ate together. He never mentioned
that earth-shattering kiss on New Year's Day, so it must not
have affected him the way it did me. I wasn't about to tell anyone that I dreamed every night of him kissing me again, or
that when we were working side by side, I stared at his lips.

On the first day of February I awoke to nothing. No coffee.
No rattle of pots and pans. I sat straight up in bed, my eyes
open so wide, my face hurt.

Billy Lee was dead. I was sure of it.

Tears welled up behind my eyes and spilled over the dam
into rivers down my cheeks. I brushed them away with the
edge of the bedsheet. What would I do without him, and why
hadn't I told him how much that kiss meant to me? I sniffed
the air. Maybe I was getting a cold and couldn't smell the coffee
or the breakfast.

Nothing.

Not one thing could keep Billy Lee out of the kitchen other
than death, so that was proof of my suspicion. I grabbed a
chenille robe from the closet. The only socks I could find were
two mismatched ones: a blue with navy stripes and a black
with red hearts. I grabbed two house shoes from the floor of
the closet: a Clifford the Big Red Dog and a Minnie Mouse.

Peter, Paul, and Mary were all meowing in the utility room:
further proof that Billy Lee was in his shop, graveyard dead.
He always fed them first thing in the morning. I ran across the
yard, through the hedge, and to the workshop. It was locked
uptight.

I'd lived next door to him for months, and not once had I
been in his house, but desperate times called for desperate
measures. If he didn't answer the back door, I had every intention of breaking and entering. If he pressed charges against
me, I'd pay the fine or sit it out in jail. Surely they'd seen
women in worse attire than mine down at that place.

I knocked.

No answer.

I tried the knob.

It was locked.

The windows were covered on the inside with miniblinds
and curtains, so I couldn't see a thing. That didn't keep me
from trying. Concerned neighbor? Peeping Tom-ette? Who
cared what they called it when they came to haul me down to
the slammer?

I leaned on the front doorbell until the cat set up a howl,
and still not a human sound came from within. I tried the
storm door, and it opened, but the main door was locked. It
was either kick it in, or the cat would begin eating Billy Lee
by nightfall. Clifford the Big Red Dog was on the way to the
first attempt when the door opened suddenly. I overbalanced,
fell into the living room, and looked up at Billy Lee Tucker,
alive and in the flesh.

His voice came out nasal and almost whiny. "What are you
doing?"

He wore faded red flannel pajama bottoms and a long sleeved gray shirt. His face was flushed, his nose red, and his
eyes bleary. He might not be dead yet, but the devil was knocking on-the- door.

I pulled the robe around my naked legs and stood up, tightening the makeshift sash. "You look like the devil."

"So do you," he said right back at me.

"Yes, but I could get dressed and look better. You could put
on a tux and still look horrid."

He headed toward what I assumed was his bedroom. "Go
away. I'm sick, and I don't want you to catch it."

He slammed the door.

I heard a moan and bedsprings.

Standing just inside the living room, I took stock of the
house. The living room was long and rectangular-with outdated furniture. The orange floral sofa with a coffee table and
end tables were definitely not of Billy Lee Tucker quality. A
matching chair with a side table and lamp seemed to date
from the sixties. The only redeeming piece in the room was a
nice, big, leather recliner facing a small television set.

Meandering toward the back of the house, I found a kitchen
with a U of cabinets-still not made or produced by Billy
Lee-an old chrome table with a yellow top, and four matching chairs. The window above the sink looked out over the
sidewalk to his shop.

When I went back through the living room, I discovered a
short hallway with a bathroom and two bedrooms opening from
it. The bathroom door was open, and I love to snoop, so I
stepped inside to find light green fixtures, a wall-hung sink, and
curling, green-flecked linoleum on the floor. The spare bedroom
invited me right in, where I found a bed covered with a white
chenille bedspread, every inch of a dresser crammed with family pictures, chest of drawers with a brush and comb set, and
nightstands with a Bible on each. Billy Lee's grandparents had
slept in this room, no doubt.

I slung open his bedroom door without even knocking.
"When did you get sick?"

He pulled the covers over his head. "I told you to go away. I
thought you'd left."

"Humph," I snorted. "I was snooping around your house.
Now I'm going to make you some toast and hot tea. I'm not
ready for you to die."

"Trudy, trust me, you don't want to catch this. It's miserable,
and it comes on fast" His voice came out muffled from beneath
the quilt.

I jerked the covers back and touched his forehead. "If I get
it, you can take care of me. What have you taken? Tylenol?
Advil?"

"Not a thing. I hate medicine. As it is, one minute I'm burning up, and the next I'm freezing. Add a bunch of medicine to
that, and I'll be dizzy and disoriented too."

"Stop acting like a baby, Billy Lee"

"Please, Trudy," he said.

"No. Even `please' won't work. I'm staying and taking care
of you"

I called Crystal, who was in the kitchen wondering where
we were. I told her to look in the medicine cabinet and bring
me a bottle of Tylenol and the vitamin C and leave both on the
front porch. Then I told her to pack me a bag and to toss in a
couple of books from the pile on my dresser.