Maggie Sweet (15 page)

Finally she said, “All right, Mama. What’s next?”

“First we go see your carvings. Then I’ll start the Jell-O salads while you go to the school to clean up.”

Jill’s carvings filled the entire workshop. The minute she opened the door I came face to face with a huge cigar-store Indian. Next to him stood a totem pole, taller than me. Before I could get my bearings. Jill yanked me inside, flipped on a light, and locked the door behind us.

Three walls held makeshift shelves that went clear to the ceiling. They were jam-packed with carvings of small animals: squirrels, rabbits, foxes. A lower shelf held life-size carving of heads: Indian children, chiefs, squaws. Another shelf was loaded with every kind of bird from doves to fierce-eyed eagles. On the workbench was a basket filled to the brim with adobe houses the size of my fist.

I stood there staring, breathing in the scent of fresh-cut wood. I didn’t jerk myself back to reality until Jill said, “Well, Mama?”

“I can’t believe this! Fifty steps from the kitchen and I’m in a whole other world. How did you do all this?”

“I used the chain saw, then an adz and a chisel on the big carvings. The little ones are mostly just whittled. What do you think, Mama? Do you like ’em?” Jill’s voice was faint. She’d been holding her breath.

I put my hand on her shoulder. “Oh, Lord, Jill. Do I like them? I better than
like
them.”

She grinned, then shrugged. “You have to say that. You’re my mother. But they are starting to sell. ’Course, people like things that aren’t that good…you know, owls with eyeglasses instead of real-looking owls; plastic country geese, with pink ribbons around their necks. Mrs. Overcash says to keep doing the adobe houses. They’re my moneymakers. They’re so small I can whittle a couple after supper and carry a bunch of ’em in my duffel to the flea markets. I get five dollars apiece for them,” she said, her eyes shining.

“Mrs. Overcash has seen your stuff?” I asked, trying to ignore a stab of jealousy.

“She’s always at the flea markets. We talk.”

“I wish you could have talked to me.”

“Don’t worry, Mama. I wasn’t ready to show them to anyone in the family yet.”

I looked around the room, touching everything. For a while neither of us said anything. I picked up the carving of the old Indian woman’s head and ran my fingers over her face. “I love this one. She has such deep, wise eyes, like
she’s seen every kind of heartache and heartbreak ever was.”

“She’s the shaman, Mama. The wise old medicine woman.”

“Can I buy her?”

“Gosh, Mama. Are you sure you really want her?”

“Oh, yes!”

“I couldn’t sell her to you. I’m not even sure if she’s any good. But if you really want her, you can have her.”

I looked into my daughter’s eyes, then into the face of the medicine woman. “Oh, Jill. I think she’s perfect just the way she is.”

When we got back to the house, I set the shaman on the kitchen table. Then I noticed how late it was. Steven would be back with his mother and I hadn’t even started the Jell-O salads. I laid out the ingredients: fruit, three kinds of Jell-O, mini-marshmallows, and coconut. Then I filled the teakettle to boil water to dissolve the gelatin.

It wasn’t ’til I set the kettle on the stove that I noticed the skillet of half-cooked potatoes I’d started for supper. The potatoes were gray and limp now, covered with grease that had gone cold hours before. A tin foil package on the counter held the leftovers from Sunday night’s roast, a few gray, stringy, meat shavings, to add to the potatoes for hash.

Our Steven-approved-every-other-Thursday-night menu.

Grabbing a trash bag, I scraped the potatoes and grease into it, then tossed in the package of beef. On the way out the door, I stopped in front of the refrigerator, snatched the menu from its side, tore it into pieces, and carried the whole sorry mess outside to the garbage can.

Back inside I started the Jell-O salads—celestial golden salad, pistachio-lime, and sweet ambrosia.

It was late by the time the salads were cooling, so the girls and I ate fried bologna sandwiches at the kitchen table. Later, on my way up to bed, I carried the shaman into the front room, cleared Steven’s magazines off the coffee table, and set the medicine woman in the center.

Graduation
morning, I woke to a room as hot and airless as the inside of a closet. I could hear the low murmur of Steven’s and Mother Presson’s voices and the sounds of cupboard doors banging downstairs.

I lay there thinking about the day ahead. There was food to get ready, dishes to wash, last minute dusting and vacuuming, tables to set, relatives to greet. I wondered if Jerry would get his final decree today. Would he find a way to call me? Had Brenda managed to get the postponement she wanted? Did she still have the power to wear Jerry down—make him feel guilty, make him feel the he was supposed to stay with her? Twenty years ago she’d been fast and smart. Was Jerry really immune to fast, smart women—especially when the woman was his wife, the mother of his son? Oh Lord.

It wasn’t ’til I heard the girls’ voices in the hallway that I slipped into my robe, brushed my hair, and pasted a smile on my face. If I started thinking about Jerry, I’d fall apart. The girls’ graduation had to be the first order of the day.

Downstairs Steven and Mother Presson were sitting at
the dining room table, their heads together, whispering over croissants and Earl Grey tea. When they saw me, they jerked apart and looked so guilty that I went through to the kitchen without a word and tried not to notice that in spite of all that had happened, Steven still remembered croissants for his mother.

In the kitchen Amy was standing over the ironing board pressing her graduation gown for the hundredth time. I was measuring coffee into a filter when she threw the gown in a heap and flounced out of the room wailing, “No matter what I do it still looks like a rag.”

While the coffee was brewing, I looked out the kitchen window. Jill was sitting in the glider, under the magnolia, looking lost and alone. As soon as the coffee was ready, I took two mugs out to the glider, handed her one and said, “Today’s the big day.”

“I know,” she said, ducking her head and grinning. “I can hardly believe it myself.”

We sat there awhile, swinging and drinking coffee, until Amy came out on the back porch and yelled, “What are you doing, Mama? You’ve got to help me with this disgusting gown.”

So I went back inside and ironed the already smooth-as-glass gown. Graduation day had started.

At two o’clock I put on my navy dotted-swiss shirtwaist and Mother and Mama Dean, Daddy and Willa Mae, Mother Presson, Steven, and I sat in the old auditorium watching the girls graduate.

Amy was solemn in her perfect white gown and pearls when Mr. Fentress announced that she’d won a scholarship to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I
wondered if she’d really leave tacky us and tacky Poplar Grove behind forever.

Then Jill (in her wrinkled gown) stepped onto the stage and flashed a grin and a peace sign. When she accepted her diploma, I wondered if the ink on it had had time to dry.

I had promised myself I wouldn’t cry, but I almost choked when they crossed the stage. Mother, Mama Dean, and Mother Presson were dabbing their eyes quietly, and Daddy reached over to squeeze my hand. Everyone around me was holding hands and sniffing. But when I looked at Steven, he was staring straight ahead. That’s when my eyes welled up. We should have been sharing this moment together.

Later, when the ceremony was over, we rode in silence back to the house for the party.

Mother and Willa Mae helped me in the kitchen while Mama Dean nagged Daddy into carrying the Wallbanger cake, jars of sun tea, and gifts from her car. Then she forced him to move all the dining-room furniture, the big table, six heavy chairs, the folding table and four folding chairs—everything but the buffet and hutch—to the opposite end of the room. When that arrangement didn’t suit her, she fussed at him ’til he moved everything back to where it had been in the first place.

While all this was going on, Steven and Mother Presson took their ease on the front porch, drinking iced tea and acting like Lord and Lady of the Plantation.

A few minutes later Mary Price and Hoyt pulled into the driveway in their Silverado, followed by Theo Bloodworth’s gray Lincoln Town Car.

After everyone arrived, congratulated the girls, and laid their gifts on the table, I carried a tray of iced tea and punch to the front room.

Theo and Mother Presson were sitting side by side on the couch. I saw Mother Presson pick up Jill’s carving and turn it over to check the label.

I carried the tray to them and said, “Jill made that.”

They both ignored me, so I set down the tray and said louder, “Jill made that.”

Mother Presson looked at me. “Did you say something, Margaret?”

“The carving, Mother Presson. Jill made it. See the initials JP on the bottom,” I said, turning it over.

Mother Presson stared at me. “Surely you don’t mean
our
Jill?”

“She’s been working in the garage workshop all year. She’s made hundreds of carvings.”

“Well, Maggie, no one ever mentioned…” Mother Presson said coolly.

Theo said, “Excuse me, Maggie. Did you say this is
your
Jill’s carving?”

By now Theo and Mother Presson were pulling their reading glasses from their purses to get a better look.

“It’s an Indian shaman. A wise old medicine woman,” I said, like I’d known it all along.

“Why, I had no idea that Jill could…but it’s charming,” Mother Presson stammered.

“It positively speaks to me,” Theo said. “It’s so powerful—primitive, almost…primordial.”

“Jill’s just a beginner,” I said.

“But, Maggie. It being primitive is what makes it so
stunning. I can’t believe I’ve been coming here for years and no one ever told me we had a budding artist in our midst,” Theo said.

“Well, I intend to find out about this. Where’s Steven?” Mother Presson’s nostrils were flaring.

Just then Steven strolled into the room, wearing his pink, gracious-host look.

Theo linked arms with him and walked him to the coffee table. “Modesty’s one thing, Steven, but how long did you plan to keep this a secret?”

Steven looked pleased, then confused.

“Really, Steven,” Mother Presson said. “I feel a perfect fool. Is a man completely without honor in his own country?”

Steven smiled nervously. “What are you talking about?”

“For goodness sake, Steven. I’m talking about Jill—the carving.
Jill’s
carving. My granddaughter is gifted and no one ever told me. Why, she’s wasting herself here in Poplar Grove. She must come to Chapel Hill with me immediately where her gifts will get the attention they deserve.”

Steven looked blank.

Mother Presson sighed loudly and handed him the shaman.

Steven looked at the carving, then at Mother Presson and Theo. It was clear he still didn’t know what they were talking about.

Theo smiled. “I’m so impressed, Steven. What art school is Jill attending?”

Steven blinked. “Art school?”

Mother Presson sniffed and fanned herself with a napkin. “Why only this morning Steven-the-Educator planned to send our little Rodin to computer school.”

“Now, Mother. I didn’t know…I mean, I knew Jill was out in the workshop doing
something.
But she’s always up to something. I figured it was one of her whims. She’s always had these odd whims.”

“She’s not quite eighteen. If she can’t have a few whims now when can she have whims?” I snapped.

Steven blinked again. “Of course she can have whims, if we all recognize that they
are
whims. She might have a certain raw talent, but she never follows through with anything. At least computer school is something concrete—something
real
. I want her to have something to fall back on when she gets bored with this current, uh, whim.”

“Chief Too-Tall has agreed to take her on as a student,” I said.

Everyone looked at me.

“Really, Margaret,” Mother Presson said. “She must go to an accredited art school. I can’t believe you’d consider some local lout…and Steven’s idea of computer school…well, Jill is truly wasting herself with the pair of you.”

My face and neck went hot. But before I could defend myself, Theo patted her perfect chignon and said smoothly, “Mrs. Presson, Chief Too-Tall
is
local so you’re probably not familiar with his work. But I assure you he’s a master carver. I have a few of his works myself. It’s really quite an honor that he’d take Jill on at her young age…though seeing her work, I can understand why he’d make an exception.”

Theo smiled up at Steven. “I know what you’re doing, Steven. It’s hard for doting daddies to let go of their little
girls. Why, when I wanted to backpack across Europe after my graduation my poor daddy was horrified. He wanted me safe, here by his side in Poplar Grove. The artist’s life is difficult and Jill
is
young, but you mustn’t be too overprotective. You have to let her try her wings.”

Instead of feeling chastised or embarrassed, doting-daddy Steven blushed to his roots and smiled at Theo in a way he’d never smiled at me. Steven and Theo? Theo and Steven? But before I could think of the word
wavelength
, Theo floated out of the room in a cloud of good perfume and rustling silk.

Mother Presson said, “My, what a charming woman. It’s a relief to know there are such people here in Poplar Grove—that Jill won’t be casting her pearls entirely before swine.”

After we ate Theo and Mother Presson talked Jill into letting everyone tour her workshop. When they were through, everyone in the family swore that Jill got her talent from their side.

Later when Steven and Mother Presson announced that not only would Jill be going to art school, she’d also be taking summer classes from the chief, Jill rushed into the kitchen, shouting, “God, Mama, did you hear the news? I can’t believe it! I swear I cannot believe it!”

Then before I could hug her, she slipped out the back door and spent the rest of the day following Steven, Theo, and Mother Presson around like a puppy and hanging on to their every word.

Washing party dishes, I stood at the kitchen window and watched them, feeling completely left out.

Just when I was considering pinching the head off the
one surviving African violet, Mary Price carried a plate into the kitchen.

“Lord, Maggie Sweet,” she said. “Who would have thought it! Jill actually graduated. And now with her artwork, everyone thinks the sun shines out of her pinkie finger. Why, she’s gone from being a juvenile delinquent to an artist in one day.”

I didn’t answer, just banged the dishes into the sink and ran the hot water full force.

Mary Price turned off the faucet and looked at me. “Well, Lord, Maggie! Don’t break a sweat or anything. I thought you’d be thrilled.”

“I
am
thrilled. It’s just…I’ve been on her side all along. But the minute Steven shows any interest—does what he should have been doing all along—I’m supposed to stand up and cheer, break out in a rash or something. Jill’s following him around like he’s the second coming,” I said, feeling hot tears behind my eyes.

“Oh, Lord!” Mary Price leaned against the counter, lit a Virginia Slim, and tossed the burned-out match in the direction of the sink.

“I know it’s hard, Maggie. But, you’ll just have to get over it. You’re right. Jill
has
had you on her side. She’s never had to give that a second thought. But the thing is, what she’s always craved is having her daddy on her side.
His
attention. You’ve been a good mother. The best. But your girls are moving on with their lives. You’ve mostly done all you can for them.”

I stared out the window. Maybe Mary Price was right. Maybe I
had
done all I could do for my girls. It had just never come to me that Jill would trade me for art school.