A Place Called Wiregrass (21 page)

Watching Cher tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear and pat Miss Claudia’s shoulder, I silently thanked God for not letting Cher turn out like her mother. Her mother, who was locked up in a Louisiana cell and was so fried out of her mind from drugs that she wouldn’t have the sense to accept a free gift.

After two weeks of working for Miss Claudia on a full-time summer basis, I was worn out. Not by the workload, but from trying to negotiate a medical breakthrough.

“Cher found out about a new trial they’re doing up in Birmingham. They say one man was cured by this new stuff.”

“Patricia was going to help me fill out these papers the city needs after her tennis lessons. And I declare, here it is a quarter after three.” Miss Claudia stretched her arm and studied the gold wristwatch.

I gritted my teeth and polished the silver teapot as hard as I could. Miss Claudia had been ignoring my every mention of treatment. Her lack of interest was worse than being hardheaded—it was downright stupid. That was the part that made me the maddest. All she wanted to do was play developer for that foolish rescue home.

When I would find the medical papers Cher had pulled from the Internet still lying on the cherry dining-room table
without so much as a finger smear, I hated that rescue home even more. I even tried leaving clinical trial papers in Richard’s garage apartment right on top of his trusty police scanner. But the battle of wills was too intense for a nerve patient.

Within days, her dining room was converted into a makeshift office. Church elders, city councilmen, and people from United Way called on her at all hours. Anybody who would listen to her talk about that home was offered a seat under the crystal chandelier.

“Missoura, we need this place something awful. I just thank the good Lord you and Aaron opened up your home to me.” Miss Claudia placed the fat black ink pen down on the dining-room table. “If it wasn’t for you, I’m sure I’d be dead or in jail, either one.”

Missoura sipped her iced tea and cautiously glanced at me. The type of glance somebody might give a little child who had walked in during adult conversation. She cleared her throat and knocked twice on the cherry table. “You ’spect I need to talk to the pastor and bishops about this?”

“I certainly think it’ll help.” Miss Claudia leaned forward and held her hand up. “Oh, and be sure to get them to attend the city council meeting next month. They’re going to discuss setting aside some money to help with all this. It’s real expensive, don’t you know.”

Missoura slightly turned her head and wrinkled her weathered brow. “How you feeling? You looking mighty pale.”

I refilled Missoura’s tea glass.

“Oh Lord, I’m fine. Haven’t had any more problems since that mishap.”

“Mishap,” I mumbled. Ice and liquid clanked into Missoura’s glass. “She was in bad shape. And won’t even talk about getting treatment.”

Miss Claudia’s hazel eyes were locked on me. It seemed like
an hour before she blinked. “Missoura, if you get your church involved, just be sure to tell them the rescue home will be a place where privacy is respected and people mind their own business.”

“I’ll have this bed ready for your nap in just a minute,” I said in clipped tones. The starched white sheets popped off the mattress with a quick yank.

The tap of her cane against the hardwood floor was as faithful as a compass telling her location. Would she lift the cane and hit me across the back for disrespecting her in front of her trusted friend? Part of me wished she would and put me back in my role as simple housekeeper. I always thought the title
companion
sounded too personal anyway.

“I think we need to clear the air,” she said.

“Ain’t nothing to say.” I pulled the pillowcase off with my back still to her. “I got out of line and apologize is all.”

Her hand rested on my shoulder, and I closed my eyes, pushing down the tide of turmoil that swelled inside me.

“I want to at least look at you,” she said.

Biting my lip, I turned around to face her.

“I understand why you said that to Missoura. You think I’m making a mistake by not taking treatments, don’t you?”

“No, it’s your business. Whatever.” I suddenly realized I sounded like Cher and felt ashamed for skirting around my anger.

“I know better than that. But I can’t make you talk. If that’s how you want to do me,” she said with a shrug and turned to walk away.

“Yes,” I yelled before she had taken the third step from me.

“I think it’s a mistake. There, I do.”

She stopped, and her cane caught the edge of her Oriental rug. The end of the rug curled up to reveal a dark pad. She
turned her head and studied my reflection in the mirror on the chest of drawers.

“It just doesn’t make sense. You got money to buy medicine. You could go to some of those trials I gave you papers on.” I dropped the pillow on the bed and slapped both hands on the hips of my jeans. “You can get better. You just don’t want to.” I sat on the naked mattress and put my hands over my ears. I took the offensive towards stopping Mama’s voice. The voice I expected to hear any minute telling me that I would be at the unemployment office by day’s end.

“I want to live my life the way I want to live it,” Miss Claudia whispered. She was sitting in front of me in the high-back burgundy chair. “Do you remember how constrained you used to feel when that man in Louisiana would knock you around?”

I lifted my head and looked into her eyes.

“Well, I sure do. Luther Ranker would tell me what I could wear. When to go to town. When to have supper fixed. When to go to bed. He’d control when I went to the bathroom if he could. And the day I learned he was lost at sea, I stood on the porch of that broken-down shack and promised myself I’d never be controlled like that again.” She balled up a fist so tight, I thought she’d punch me out if I tried to change her. “And let me tell you one thing, Erma Lee. I won’t spend what time I have being controlled by some snake oil that may or may not make me throw up, that may or may not put me flat on my back in that bed.”

I looked down and slowly shook my head. “But those papers show…”

“They show lots of things. And for somebody younger, that’s probably just the trick. But it’s not for me. I got my purpose now.”

“But see there, you could get cured and be around to enjoy the rescue home and everything.”

She closed her eyes and smiled. “Sugar, I appreciate your concern. Really I do. But I got enough battles to fight with this mess without having to fight you too.”

At that point I wished she would have fired me. The grandfather clock outside her door struck three, and I wanted to run before the fairy tale ended.

“You’re mad at me, aren’t you?”

“No, don’t be silly,” I said.

“I know you. It’s all over your face. But it’s my life, don’t you know.”

The turmoil in my stomach tracked up my chest and throat with the rage of a tornado.
Don’t cry,
I ordered and looked out of her bay window. The bright green oak leaves glistened in the afternoon sun.

“Come on over here.” She patted the arm of her chair.

I knelt by her chair and let her rub my cheek with the back of her cold hand.

“I’m going to need your support and your prayers,” she said. “But I’ll be honest. Most of all, I need you. We’ll make it through this. We’re survivors, you and me.”

But I was tired of fighting for survival. I placed the side of my face on her lap and turned my head away towards the bedroom window. Spanish moss swung carelessly on an ancient oak limb just outside the window. Had it not been for the stains left on her navy skirt, she would’ve thought I was napping instead of crying.

A fine mist of rain fell when I pulled up to the building with faded letters, Westgate Trailer Park. I ran into the white cinderblock office and almost slipped when opening the door.

“Careful. All I need’s a lawsuit,” Miss Trellis moaned behind the wood-paneled counter.

While making out the rent check, I listened to her describe the bad case of sinus she was collecting with the change in weather.

“How’s that wayward home coming together?”

“You mean the home for abused women,” I said, wondering if she had Miss Claudia’s home wiretapped.

“Yeah, whatever Claudia’s a calling it.” Her nubby hand rested on the roll of her chin.

“They’re pulling the money together. Still looking for a location.” I zipped my wallet up and turned to go.

“They tell me Claudia’s gone plumb Negra crazy. Wants to get all them into it. She always was the beatenest thing to make over a Negra. Next thing you know they’ll be taking over the place.”

Waves of her nasal voice sent a chill through me.

“That’s just like her to want to stir up trouble. Always something for that bunch.”

The bitterness was contagious. Before I could help myself my hand had already slammed the counter. Miss Trellis jumped backwards, and the black vinyl chair that held her tilted to the side.

“All that woman’s trying to do is help people. I’ve heard you run Miss Claudia into the ground until I’m sick and tired of it. Your problem is you’re so eat up with jealousy you might split wide open. At least she ain’t some broken-down hag like you. All the time watching that TV and talking trash about everybody in town.”

The plastic blinds flew sideways when I swung the office door open. I didn’t turn around when I heard her say, “And they say you got baptized. Huh, some Christian you turned out to be. I’m a mind to evict hypocrites.”

The worst thing about being poor was having to compromise. I didn’t sleep a bit that night wondering what I would do if there was an eviction notice on my door the next morn
ing. I could never ask Miss Claudia to let me live with her. I prayed for options and direction. Upon hearing the recording that my cousin Lucille’s phone number had been disconnected, I realized options were miracles meant for others.

The next morning I went behind my trailer, my home with Miss Trellis’s name on the title, and picked a handful of wild daisies. The bottoms of my jeans legs were still wet from the dew when I walked into her office.

She was sitting at the counter sipping coffee while Katie Couric and Matt Lauer talked about their upcoming vacations. When I entered, her beady eyes drifted towards the door.

“Good morning,” I said and held the flowers up in both hands. “I picked these for you.”

She slurped the coffee loudly. “Ummm.” She patted her flat gray hair and continued to look at the television.

“I hope you’ll accept my apology.” I wondered if this was what Lee meant last Sunday when he said Christians have to die to self. Every inch of my self wanted to throw the flowers at her greasy hair.

Matt Lauer said, “But first this is
Today
on NBC,” and then the volume blared when a man named Crazy Ed screamed about low car prices.

Miss Trellis took her time in turning towards me. “Now what you want?”

I forced a smile and repeated the apology.

She moaned and closed her eyes. “I don’t know. It sure does hurt a woman to get cussed the way you done me.”

“Cuss?”
Don’t fall for her trap and create another argument.
“Yes, ma’am. Like I said, I worked myself silly yesterday. And just…”

“Working yourself over that Negra house, I reckon.” Another moan and a drawn-out slurp of coffee followed.

I looked down at the once white floor. A dead roach rested in the corner. “I best be going.”

She coughed and played with the white sailor collar of her duster. “What you got there?”

The bright golden flowers seemed out of place in the brown-paneled office. “Here. These are for you.” I handed over the flowers, tied together with a stray piece of ribbon left over from Cher’s birthday party.

“Well, I do know. For me?” She widened her tiny eyes, making them appear normal-sized. Anyone who walked in would’ve guessed she had just won a sweepstakes. “Ain’t none my tenants brung me flowers before.”

I watched from my parked car while she sniffed the flowers. My neighbors lined their vehicles up next to her office and waited to exit Westgate. I cranked my car and added the faded Monte Carlo to the lineup. Ready to face the bright world.

The car-wash business was Cher’s idea, and soon she and Laurel had all the business they could handle. They started with Patricia’s and Miss Claudia’s cars, and before long vehicles were lined up on the cracked asphalt in front of our trailer.

“Miss Trellis is going to have a fit,” I said and counted seven cars.

“I’ve already thought of that,” Cher said. She smiled and pulled the green wad of cash from the back pocket of her cut-off jeans. “I told her we’ll wash her minivan for free once a week.”

I didn’t say it, but I wished I was as bold as Cher. She pulled in good money with that business. Only thing was I had to make her split the revenue evenly with Laurel. At first Cher put in to pay Laurel a percentage of the business, arguing that it was her idea to start with.

Since Kasi worked the night shift at Graton Electronics, she was around to keep an eye on the girls. The summer routine
became standard. Kasi would supervise the girls from sunup to one in the afternoon and then drop them off at the public swimming pool, five blocks from Miss Claudia’s. At five I’d pick them up.

Fearing someone might actually witness her getting into my paint-starved car, Cher insisted that I pick them up at the softball field next to the swimming pool. “You’re late the first time and I’m pulling right up to the front gate,” I warned. But every day she and Laurel would appear around the corner of the metal porta-potties right at five, their hair slicked back and their tanned feet protected by plastic flip-flops.

One afternoon during late June, while Miss Claudia napped, I slipped away to make my credit record clean again. The twenty-five dollars I owed the skating rink for Cher’s birthday game was one worry I’d be glad to have off my shoulders.

The red-and-white metal building looked so different during the daylight hours. Rust collected on the grooves around the glassed front doors, and the dirt parking lot was littered with crushed soda cans, cigarette butts, and a beer bottle or two.