Love Me Tender (9 page)

Chapter 16

THE VACUUM cleaner was one of those old-fashioned standing ones that can be practically raced from room to room. I raced it.
Stupid, stupid, stupid,
I kept saying to myself.

When I turned the vacuum off, I heard Mel and Aunt Clare in my room, talking. I could hear everything they said. Not that they talked so loudly, but I did my best dusting close by the open door.

Aunt Clare said, “I think the time has come to talk about a nursing home.”

“For Momma? Because she left her iron on?”

“Because she nearly burned the whole house down,” Aunt Clare said. “Three times.”

“Three? The window in the kitchen and the laundry room fire and what else?”

“She decided to burn fallen leaves and burned down the garden shed.”

“She mentioned that,” Mel said.

“She's just not facing facts,” Aunt Clare said. “The wind got hold of the fire and blew it thataway, is all she will admit to.”

“It happens.”

“The fire could just as easily have blown toward the house, Melisande. At the time, I was only concerned that she let that fire get out of control. That she didn't keep the hose right next to her. But then her backyard neighbor told me she went around to the other side of the house to prune some bushes. She wasn't tending the fire at all like she claimed.”

“She made a mistake,” Mel said. “But you can't count the fan, it could have happened to anyone.”

“Who do you know that it happened to?”

“We'll just get her an iron with automatic shutoff,” Mel said. “The woman is sharp as a tack, Clare. She doesn't belong in a nursing home.”

“The only sharp left to her is on her tongue, Melisande.” Aunt Clare was spitting the words out. “She went to the library one day and decided to leave her car parked there in the lot while she walked around to the corner drugstore. When she came back out, Momma looked up and down the street for the car and she thought it had been stolen. Reported it to the police.”

“Anybody could—”

“Forget where she parked her car? For a moment or two, yes. For five minutes, even. But to fill out a police report and call me to come bring her home and
still
not remember? The point is, she forgets things now. She makes mistakes that could get her hurt, or worse.”

While I listened, I held the picture of that hole in the wall in my mind. I didn't know what to think.

Mel said, “I see how upset you are, Clare. But I've only been here a few hours. I need a little longer to get a sense of how Momma's doing.”

“She's losing it,” Aunt Clare shouted. Then said, “Shhh,” like it was Mel who'd done the shouting. Her voice was lowered when she added, “Can't you take my word for it?”

I went to stand in the doorway as Mel said, “I guess not. What did you mean, anyway, leaving me that message, ‘Momma's time has come’?”

“I don't remember what I said on the message,” Aunt Clare said. “Just whatever came to mind.”

“Well, maybe we ought to put
you
in the nursing home.” Mel's breath chopped up her voice as she lifted one corner of the mattress to fold the sheet under it. Aunt Clare didn't make a move to help her.

I took over the job, and Mel stood away to face Clare with her hands on her hips. Her fighting stance. “For heaven's sake, Clare, I thought she was dying. I thought I'd missed my chance to make up with her.”

“Is that what you're doing here? Making up with her?”

“You make it sound like I'm plotting against you, Clare. Just remember I wouldn't be here now if you hadn't called.”

“I know that. Don't you think I know that?” Aunt Clare said. “But I didn't expect you to side with Momma against me.”

“Clare . . .” Mel sat down on the bed, which interfered only a little with folding the top sheet back. “Oh, I don't know. I haven't seen her forget anything just yet.”

“How long are you planning to stay?”

“What?” Sleepless Mel didn't seem to be quite a match for Memphis Barbie.

“It might be weeks before she does something more to endanger herself or the neighborhood—”

“The neighborhood?” Mel looked like she was tempted to laugh. “Are you exaggerating just a little?”

Clare lost her temper. “Does Elvira
have
to stand right there and listen to everything we say?”

This I ignored. I was shaking pillows into faded lavender cases, I was busy. Mel said, “She might as well know why we're here.”

“Obviously I cannot reason with you. Why should anything be different, even after all these years?”

“I don't know,” Mel said, just as stubbornly.

“I shouldn't be one bit amazed,” Aunt Clare said, leaning over to shake her finger in Mel's face. “You were never the right kind of sister to me. You always acted like you hoped something dreadful would happen to me.”

“Not dreadful,” Mel said, her voice shrill, her eyes wide. “I just wished you'd disappear.”

“Oh, that's not too dreadful.”

Mel brought her voice down to normal and somewhat sarcastic to say, “Well, I didn't wish it all the time, Clare. Just whenever it was inconvenient to have a little sister.” But then she lost it again, standing up as near to Aunt Clare as the Belly would let her get. “Do you remember my one and only slumber party?”

“Do I? You wouldn't let me come. You and your friends shut your bedroom door in my face,” Aunt Clare yelled.

“We must be remembering a different party,” Mel said right back, really and truly worked up now.

“You might want to hold it down,” I said. The last thing we needed here was a knock-down, drag-out fight. But Mel was rolling.

“You crashed the one I remember,” she said. “And after giving me your solemn promise you would watch TV with Momma and Daddy.”

“I just wanted to be with all of you,” Aunt Clare whined.

“You were. Those girls spent hours curling your hair and painting your face.”

“I had the best time.”

“See, you do remember,” Mel said furiously. “But it was my party and I wanted it all to myself.”

“You were mean to me.”

“I just wanted to have one night,” Mel said, and repeated it more loudly. “
One night
to be the way it would have been if I'd never had a little sister.”

“That's mean.” Aunt Clare looked at me. “Don't you think that's mean?” To put a stop to this, I had to agree with her. But really, I knew just how Mel felt.

Kerrie and the grandmother could be heard coming up the stairs, which forced a lull in the combat. They brought in a fresh load of sheets. “Smell,” Kerrie said, pushing the sheets into Mel's face. “Springtime freshness.”

“Wonderful,” Mel said, going pale. “Let me help you make your bed.”

“No, no,” the grandmother said. “Kerrie and I can manage. You all did enough.”

Aunt Clare said she had to be getting on to feed the puppies. I figured she had a team of elves to handle the hard labor at home, since she didn't appear to be one for stepping up to help. But likely those elves needed constant supervision.

Kerrie and I were given hot chocolate and cinnamon toast for an early supper and sent to bed before it was really dark. Neither Kerrie nor I fought it. I didn't know how long Mel planned to stay, but I wanted to lie awake and enjoy having my own room.

I rested one arm on the table and leaned into it, looking forward to lying awake all through dusk and then being in the dark for at least an hour. I wanted to breathe in the smells of the grandmother's home. Part old wood and lemon oil, part books and cinnamon.

I wanted to think about spending the night in the grandmother's house. My grandmother. I wanted to get used to the idea. Then I wanted to figure out how to make the grandmother like me. Step 1: Don't comment on the size of the hole she burns into anything.

Like the very thought was a cue, Mel got up from the table, saying, “I'll check the dryer.”

I got up fast. “I'll check it. The quilt is for me.”

I got there first, but Mel followed me, saying, “I didn't know you liked quilts so much. You never show any interest in them at flea markets.”

I tried to get in and out of the laundry room fast, but it was hard to get that quilt to pop right out of the dryer. It was still wet in the center, so I turned the wet side out and shoved it back in.

By then Mel had come to stand in the doorway. She stared at the plastic covering on the wall. At the hole. “You know, it looked a little bigger to me the first time I was in here,” I said. “Once the surprise wears off, it doesn't make you want to go, ‘Oh, wow.’”

The grandmother showed up behind Mel. She said, “What are you thinking?” and Mel said, “That children are a constant amazement.”

Good answer.

“The quilt is still wet,” I said, standing in front of them like a dog who wanted to be let out. It was how I felt, really. “I'm going upstairs to unpack my stuff, if that's okay.”

“Be my guest,” the grandmother said, but not in quite the dry tone she'd used to not quite welcome us in. I figured we were like the hole in the wall. Once she was over the first shock of us, it was okay that we were here.

In my room, I opened a dresser drawer. I hoped to find one empty so I could put my clothes away and feel like a regular granddaughter must feel, visiting Grandma. Even if it was only for a day or so.

There was a smell, the exact rich woodsy smell I was expecting. And there were a lot of loose photos in the drawer. Most of the ones right on top were of Kerrie and me. These were the ones Mel sent at Christmas. I shut the drawer, not sure how to feel about any of this.

I did feel something, neither sad nor happy. It was too much like the feeling of being in trouble to call it excitement. I got into bed, putting that drawer at the back of my mind like a book I was not ready to read.

Mel came to look in on me. “You were awfully quiet the last half hour or so. Is something bothering you?”

“I didn't know you were writing to her. Your mother. I thought you weren't talking to her at all. Except for the Christmas cards.”

“I didn't write letters in the sense that you're talking about. Starting ‘Dear Momma’ and ending ‘Love, Mel.’ I sent reports.”

“Reports?”

“I let her know when we moved, when I got pregnant, when I had a baby. When we settled down, I wrote her your daddy was going into business.”

“Did she write back?”

“Now and then. I called her when your other grandmomma died. She had just broken her foot or she would have come to the funeral. Aunt Clare came, though, do you remember?”

I shook my head. Those few days of going to the funeral home were just a memory of rain hitting the wind-shield for what seemed like a very long time.

“It's just not right,” I said, “that I didn't know more about her.” This much I knew was true, but I couldn't think exactly how Mel might have done differently.

“She can be so stubborn. Was
being
stubborn. I just didn't want you to hope for something that might not happen. Like having another grandmother.”

I thought of the pictures, stuffed into a drawer in this room that had belonged to someone who died. I said, “I still don't know if that will happen.”

“Why, Elvira,” Mel said. “It already has.”

Maybe. But I wasn't sure.

“Was Aunt Clare this mean to you when she was Kerrie's age and you were mine?”

“I don't suppose so,” Mel said, and then double-clutched. “Not that she's being mean now, it's just that we have a lot of stuff to work out. Old stuff we never really talked through.”

“I know that's the right answer to give,” I said. “But I want you to really think about it and tell me the truth, even if it isn't pretty.”

“Why are you asking this?”

“I sure hope Kerrie isn't going to grow up to be such a pain in the neck. She is one, of course. Right now. But I had hopes she'd improve.”

“Then I have to say you're asking the wrong question,” Mel said. “I think you should ask was I nicer to Clare when we were kids.”

I sank into the pillows with a groan.

“Right now, it sounds like Clare feels all used up,” Mel said.

“Let's don't talk about her anymore tonight.”

Mel patted me on the butt and was gone. I couldn't tell if she crept back downstairs or went off to bed. When I turned out the lamp, I flipped onto my side, the way I like to sleep.

The window screen was aglow with moving green lights. Flickering green lights that after the first startled moment I realized were fireflies.

I didn't last long enough to know how long they stayed.

Chapter 17

MEL HAD already eaten breakfast with the grandmother by the time I rolled out of bed at ten-thirty. “We're going to paint the window,” the grandmother announced, like she was telling me we were going to the zoo.

“Hoo-ray,” I muttered under my breath. I am not human when I first get up, no matter how late. I headed straight for the coffeepot and nobody said a word. Chocolate donuts had come from somewhere, and I greeted them like gifts from the tooth fairy.

“Maybe we'll paint the whole kitchen,” Mel said. “We'll take your car, Momma, to go downtown and buy some paint.”

Now that I had a mouthful of chocolate, I didn't mind.

The grandmother went upstairs to put on a going-to-town dress. Mel and I were alone.

“When was Daddy supposed to come home?”

“Things won't even heat up till tomorrow night. He went early so he could catch up with some old friends. Put out feelers for a job out there.”

“A job? He's planning to move out there?” The shock all but took my breath away.

“We're going to have to move unless we're expecting this child to sleep with us until you go off to college. We can't add an ant farm to that room you and Kerrie share.”

Too true. At least she was still talking like we were all going to be living together. “I thought you meant we were moving to a bigger house in town,” I said.

“Me too,” Mel said. “I just didn't know how serious your daddy was about this Vegas thing till last week.”

“I wish we could talk to him,” I said.

Mel didn't say anything. Kerrie was coming downstairs. She had been up and dressed for some time, judging from Mel's reaction as she came into the kitchen. “You changed clothes again?”

She held out the skirt of a dress with a ruffled hem and twirled. “I don't have anything else to do,” she said.

Aunt Clare came in the back door, unannounced even by the sound of her footsteps. “Where's Momma?”

“Upstairs,” Kerrie said.

Aunt Clare said, “Have you given any thought to what we talked about?” Pretty much putting Mel on the spot.

“We still don't have enough room for that dog,” I said.

I got a look loaded with the message that Aunt Clare was not warming to me. But then the grandmother could be heard on the stairs and we all went silent.

Aunt Clare reached for a mug and poured herself a coffee.

Kerrie said, “Why's it so quiet in here?”

“No one wants to upset you over the dog,” I said as the grandmother came in.

She took one look at Kerrie and broke into a smile. So Kerrie didn't give the dog another thought. She did her little dance routine for the grandmother.

The grandmother was pretty nicely turned out herself. The dress she wore clung to her till she moved, and then it sort of floated around her. I particularly admired her hairdo, swept up in a kind of roll at the back of her head. She looked old and wrinkled, of course, but she was pretty too.

Mel stood up and I saw she'd put on her one and only maternity skirt instead of those knit pants with the elastic waist. Standing there in jeans and a vintage Jimi Hendrix T-shirt with one tiny hole in the rib cage area plus a few donut crumbs, I asked myself, What's wrong with this picture?

The grandmother asked, “This is how you go to town?”

“I didn't know we were going to town. I didn't bring any dresses,” I said, leaving out the information that I didn't own one at the moment. That I likely wouldn't own one until someone died or got married.

“Momma, don't make this about respect,” Mel said. “We're going to buy paint.”

The grandmother gave a little sniff and turned away. Just then the doorbell rang. Kerrie and I followed her to the door, me brushing away donut crumbs. We opened the door to find that elderly gentleman with singed eyebrows standing there.

He wore a different golf pro outfit today; the blue collar and short-sleeved cuffs of the white shirt matched his pants. “Good morning, Vertie,” he said. “Won't you introduce me to these lovely girls?”

The grandmother blushed. “It's just we've had some catching up to do.”

“I'm Mr. Singer,” he told us. “Abe Singer.” He made the
g
sound hard, like the beginning of a new word.

When he stayed on for coffee and donuts, Mel excused herself to go buy some gas for the car. I was just squirting Hershey's syrup into a cup of coffee for myself. But I said, “Want me to come along?”

Mel grinned and said, “I just need ten minutes alone.”

The grandmother told Mr. Singer all about my wall-washing talents and Kerrie's abilities with a load of wash, and he didn't sound like he was faking his interest in this information. Little muscles moved his few remaining eyebrow hairs around almost constantly as he listened. He was an easy fellow to like.

Aunt Clare showed off her glitter manicure and Kerrie's.

“I have jobs at home, too,” Kerrie told him, going back to a subject with a little more mileage in it. “I turn the grow lights on in the basement in the morning and turn them off when it starts to get dark. That's the easy one.”

“So then, you're not just a pretty face,” he said to make Kerrie smile.

Aunt Clare said, “The little sisters are always the glamour girls.”

This stung me badly, and even Kerrie glanced at me for some hint about how she ought to respond. The grandmother was putting cat food into a dish, same as yesterday. But she looked over, frowning.

“I didn't mean that to sound like a dig,” Aunt Clare said when the moment stretched. “Elvira has that wonderful tall gangly look that models are made of, anybody can see that. Nobody is more glamorous than models, except maybe actresses.”

I said, “Thank you, Aunt Clare.”

“I didn't mean to hurt your feelings, sweetie,” she said with real feeling. “You're just going through that stage girls go through. You'll wake up one morning wanting to try a little harder, you'll see.”

“Put a sock in it, Clare,” the grandmother said.

“Why, Momma—”

Mr. Singer pointed to my feet and said, “I've been admiring your Birkenstocks.” I put out a coy foot, the way a model would.

“Those things have a name?” the grandmother said, but not unkindly. It was more a statement of disbelief.

“These are Mel's,” I said. “Lately, her feet swell and the strap rubs up a blister, so I have them on loan.”

Mr. Singer said he used to buy himself Birkenstocks but his son kept taking them. “Nothing to beat them for comfort,” he said to the grandmother. “I have a bunion.”

She said, “I might have to give them a try.”

“These are size nine,” I said, thinking she meant to try them on. She sat down with us, still never looking at me, unless the sandals counted.

“Why, you have small feet,” she said. “I could never get into a size nine.”

This made me grin.

Aunt Clare sighed, as if this talk of bunions and practical shoes had begun to tire her.

The front door opened and Mel called, “I'm back,” but she went up the stairs. She was probably too embarrassed to head straight for the downstairs bathroom in front of company.

Mr. Singer said, “It's been a long time since I've seen a Fireflite. Do you think I could take a closer look?”

“Let's go kick the tires,” the grandmother said. I walked as far as the front porch with them, answering Mr. Singer's questions the way I'd heard Daddy do for people a hundred times.

I stopped at the swing, and the grandmother took him out to see the car her very own self, looking like it was a matter of some pride to her. He kept a guarding hand near the small of her back as they went down the stairs, although he never touched her. Never made her feel she needed his aid.

And in fact she was a head taller than he was—maybe she should have been more watchful of
him.