Fannie Flagg Read online

  “Yes, but Macky, a twenty-year-old, ratty-looking chenille bedspread might not look homey to her, it might just look old and ratty. Did you ever think of that?”

  “Honey, it’s perfectly fine. I promise you.”

  “Well, if you think so. But I can at least wash the quilt and the bedclothes. I can do that, can’t I?”

  “Of course.”

  They started to strip the bed as Norma said, “Still, Macky, there is such a thing as not doing enough. I don’t want her to think we’re not excited she’s coming home.” She pointed at the windows. “Can you get those curtains down? I might as well do them all at once.”

  Macky started to take the curtains down. “Norma,” he said, “of course she’ll know we’re excited she’s coming home. She’ll be able to tell. I just think we should try and live the way we always do and not try to put on any airs or do anything different. Isn’t that why she’s coming, to get away from all the pressures? She probably needs to spend some time in a normal home, eat normal food, and slow down.”

  “I know that,” said Norma, “but don’t forget when we were up in New York she entertained us royally, threw out the red carpet, catered to our every need. I don’t want her to think we are not willing to do the same.”

  Norma looked suspiciously at the little oval rug on the floor. “This rug needs to be shampooed; can you do that for me?”

  “All right, whatever you say. I’ll come up and do it later. Anything else?”

  “Yes, grab the towels and washrags in the bathroom. I don’t know how long they’ve been there. And, honey, check that shower curtain for mildew.”

  As they were walking downstairs, Norma said, “Macky, what about Aunt Elner!”

  “What about her?”

  “Are we going to tell her? Baby Girl said for us not to tell anybody she was coming. Do you think she meant Aunt Elner, too?”

  “Did she mention Aunt Elner?”

  “No. She didn’t say a word about her.”

  “There’s your answer, then. If she had wanted us to tell Aunt Elner, she would have mentioned it.”

  “I know, but I cannot imagine she wouldn’t want Aunt Elner to know.”

  “All I know is we have to go by what she said.”

  “But she hasn’t seen Aunt Elner since she was four; why wouldn’t she want to see her?”

  “Honey, I’m sure she will see her. Why not let her decide when she wants to?”

  Norma put the first load of washing in, added detergent, closed the lid, and sat down with him at the kitchen table. “Macky, what if she doesn’t want to see Aunt Elner when she’s here, and Aunt Elner finds out that she was in town after she’s gone? Aunt Elner will be so hurt.”

  “Norma, there you go making a mountain out of a molehill again, over something that hasn’t even happened yet. Everything will work out fine.”

  Norma got up and poured herself a cup of coffee. “OK, this is what we will do. After she’s been here for a while and gotten settled in and all, I’ll just bring it up naturally, you know, in conversation. I’ll just casually say, Baby Girl, I’m sure you will want to see your Aunt Elner. She would be so disappointed not to see you. She’s so proud of you and brags about you to everyone in town when she sees you on TV. She always says, ‘That’s my little niece.’ ”

  “In other words, you’re gonna blackmail the poor girl into going.”

  “Don’t be silly. Then, when she decides, I’ll call and say, Aunt Elner, guess what? Baby Girl has just flown into town as a surprise. That way Aunt Elner can be surprised.”

  Macky offered another suggestion. “Why don’t you just take Baby Girl over there, knock on the door, and really surprise her?”

  Norma looked at Macky in utter disbelief. “Macky, are you thinking with your elbow? You can’t just go up and knock on a ninety-three-year-old woman’s door and yell surprise! She could have a heart attack and drop dead right there in the doorway and wouldn’t that be wonderful for Baby Girl to come home and kill her aunt, just like that, right off the bat. That would just be a wonderful vacation for her, wouldn’t it? How would you like to have that on your conscience for the rest of your life?”

  “Well, at least she’d be in town for the funeral.…”

  Norma looked at Macky and shook her head. “You know, Macky, sometimes I worry about you, I really do.”

  I Did What?

  New York City

  April 1, 1973

  The luncheon went well. Extremely well. There were times today when Dena was smiling and shaking hands that she really cared about what the other person was saying. Sometimes it seemed the worse she felt, the nicer she became. A twinge of guilt. What if these people had seen her a few hours ago, sloshed to the gills? They would have been horrified. But although she was standing there looking calm and relaxed, emotionally she was crawling on her hands and knees. She had been lucky because the luncheon had not ended one minute too soon. At about 2:45 all the aspirin, Alka-Seltzer, Valium, and the two Bloody Marys she had managed to drink had started to wear off and she could feel that big, dark, pounding headache looming in the background, ready to hit her like a herd of buffalo. Her stomach started to burn again and every muscle in her body felt as if she had been dropped from a ten-story building. Only in the last ten minutes had she begun to sweat ever so slightly and noticed a tic beginning in her left eye. But she made it through.

  She got into a cab and said, “One thirty-four West Fifty-eighth, please.” Smiled and waved good-bye. When the cab made a left turn out of the park and she was out of sight, she almost collapsed with relief. It was over. She could finally stop smiling. Now she could go home, take more aspirin, another Valium, drink an ice-cold beer, and get in bed and sleep. All she had to do was just hang on a little longer.

  But hanging on was not made easy by this cab driver. He drove in short spurts, slamming on his brakes and whipping one way then another. She leaned forward.

  “Sir, do you mind not jerking the car. I’m just getting over a hip operation.”

  The driver paid no attention except to give her a dirty look and mumble something in a foreign language. He continued to oversteer and to jerk and slam on his brakes. She could feel the herd again closing in on her head. She tried again, “Sir, would you please—”

  She could tell he was ignoring her. She gave up, sat back, and tried to hold on as best she could. Jesus, was there a cab driver left in New York who spoke English? Not only did this guy not speak English, he was mean, surly, and obviously hated women. His body odor was strong enough to strip paint off walls. She got out on the corner of Fifty-eighth and Sixth because she didn’t have the energy to try and explain to him how to go around the block. After she handed him a five-dollar bill for a $4.70 fare, he gave her another dirty look, grunted something, and held out his hand for a tip. She said, “Listen, buster, if you expect a tip you better learn to drive, to speak English, and learn some damn manners while you’re at it!” The driver screamed at her in his native tongue, whatever it was, threw her change on the ground, and spit at her. As he squealed off, he yelled the one English word he did know: “Faggot!”

  Dena gave him the finger and screamed back, “You jerk—why don’t you go back where you came from, you creep!” Not only did screaming hurt her head, it caused people to stop and stare. As she looked around she thought, Oh, great, here I am standing on a street corner with a hangover and turning into the Ugly American right before my own eyes. She was probably recognized and would be quoted tomorrow in The Daily News.

  The only consolation was that as she walked away, several people applauded.

  As she entered the apartment, she started to take her clothes off. She headed down the hall for the medicine chest and took three huge swallows from the bottle of Maalox Liquid to help put out the fire. When she was opening the aspirin bottle she noticed her hands shaking. That was something that had never happened to her before, and it frightened her. As a matter of fact, she had always had nerves of steel. But she s
oon dismissed the thought. It’s just because you’re tired, you’re not an alcoholic, for heaven’s sake, you’ve just been pushing yourself lately. Well, lately for about fifteen years. She usually was in control of her drinking but she had noticed recently, about once every two weeks or so, she would go out and, like last night, get drunk out of her mind. Then wake up with a hangover from hell and swear she would never do it again. Guess it’s almost like a teakettle. I have so much pressure, I need to let off a little steam. But the hangovers were getting worse and worse, and she wondered why she kept doing it. Her career was going great, she was on the highest-rated morning show on TV. You couldn’t get any better than that, except for prime time, and that might be in her future if things kept going as well as they had been. She had finally gotten over that guy from D.C. It had taken her almost five years, but she hardly ever thought about him anymore. Well, hardly. It must be I’m not getting enough rest, that’s all. I’m not unhappy.

  She ran a tub of hot water, hoping it would help soothe her aching body. Going to the kitchen for that beer, she remembered—she had to call J.C. before she went back to sleep, and think of some reason she could not go to dinner.

  She got into the tub, began to relax, and to feel a little better. She sat there admiring the beauty of the light amber fluid in the clear bottle, the way the condensation on the Miller bottle ran down the black and gold label, like it was a fine piece of art. That was the problem with alcohol. It was so beautiful to look at, how could you resist it? And what kind of place could be more inviting and seductive than a truly elegant cocktail bar? She had felt that way the first time she had been taken to a nice place by a friend of her mother’s when she was twelve. From the very beginning she had been mesmerized by the rows and rows of bottles sitting on glass shelves on the mirror behind the bar, the way the glass was lit, and how the emerald green of the crème de menthe and the bright red of the grenadine seemed to glow, and how happy everybody seemed. She even remembered the lushness of the rugs, the little pink lampshades that sat on the tables, and the muffled sounds of the cocktail piano playing over in the corner. It was, to her, homelike. That was also the first time she had ever seen an honest-to-God gin martini in person. It seemed at the time to be the most glamorous thing in the world, other than Radio City Music Hall and the Rockettes. It really did look as if someone had melted a handful of icy-blue diamonds and poured them right into that tall, chilled, slender, stemmed glass. Not only did she want to grab it and drink it, she wanted to eat the glass as well, chew the whole thing up. She had felt the same way later about scotch. Just the name alone was inviting enough but when they poured that thick, rich, caramel-colored liquid into that short, thick-bottomed glass, she knew it must taste exactly like liquid butterscotch. She couldn’t wait until she grew up and would be able to order a real drink instead of the Shirley Temple her mother’s friend had ordered for her that first time. When she finally was able to order a martini, the first sip nearly knocked her head off. It was so strong. And how surprised she was that scotch tasted more like iodine than butterscotch candy. Two of the great disappointments in her life.

  So now when she did drink, she often ordered cocktails like grasshoppers, pink squirrels, and brandy alexanders, compounding the mistake. Last night was an exception. She only drank aquavit with beer chasers because J.C. loved it and it was fun for the waiters to bring the frozen bottles to the table and pour. Poor old J.C. He believed anything she told him. He was such a good egg, really, he was fun, made the perfect escort, and he was so much in love with her that she could do pretty much what she wanted to on a date. And there were times when she was actually glad to see him. But most of all he kept other guys away. There was one other reason she wanted him around. She did not love him, and that was just fine with her. She had no interest in love. Love had taken her in the back room and beaten her up pretty badly. Falling head over heels for a slick, handsome, fast-talking Washington lobbyist had done nothing but break her heart and keep her upset. She had been completely obsessed with him and spent years waiting for him to call, waiting for him to come back to town, catching him in lies. She vowed never to see him anymore but took him back each time. Whether it had been love or obsession, now that it was finally over, she wanted no part of it. It had been too painful.

  Now she was perfectly happy being the one who was loved, and she was going to keep it that way. Sex, maybe, friendship, yes, but love, no. If she ever felt love coming toward her, she would cross the street to the other side. Besides, she was determined not to let anything or anyone stand in the way of her work ever again.

  After the bath she got into bed and called J.C. and was pleased he was not home. He had probably gone over to the sports bar to watch football, so she was able to leave a message with his answering service. It wasn’t until she put the phone back on the table and took the receiver off the hook that she noticed her address book lying wide open—to the letter W. A wave of hangover anxiety came over her when she saw the names Norma and Macky Warren, Elmwood Springs, Missouri. She began to have a recollection of calling someone at six o’clock that morning when she had been out of her mind. She tried to remember. Oh, please don’t tell me I called them, tell me I didn’t, surely I couldn’t have done something that stupid. But deep down she knew very well that she might have. She had called people before and not remembered. She didn’t want to think about it so she put on her electric blanket, pulled the covers over her head, and went to sleep.

  Dena awakened at 4:00 A.M. on Monday morning, rested, but still a little guilty. She had slept all Saturday and Sunday. She showered, dressed, and was ready when the car picked her up at five and took her to the studio. She liked the city that time of morning. The streets were quiet and almost empty, only a few early risers and several stragglers going home after a long night. The aloneness was familiar. She saw one couple trying to hail a cab, the woman still dressed in a sequined cocktail dress and the man in a tux without a tie. At this time of morning Sixth Avenue looked as long and as wide as a football field but would soon be so packed with cars and people that by the time she left work, the buildings on both sides would look like they had each taken twenty giant steps into the middle of the street. She went into the building at the studio entrance. After four years she still had a hard time believing she actually worked at Rockefeller Plaza and no matter how many times she went in, the minute she entered she always had the feeling she had stepped inside an Ayn Rand novel, from the murals on the walls to the way her high heels cracked like gun shots on the marble as she walked down the empty halls to those smooth, brass elevators that shot her up twenty-six floors in five seconds. The only side effect of her lost weekend was that her eyes were puffy from so much sleep but Magda, the Yugoslavian makeup woman, would fix that as she always did, making her sit for ten minutes with tea bags on her eyes.

  Her interview with Helen Gurley Brown went very well. It was supposed to have been a fluff piece on the Cosmopolitan editor but it turned out to be sharp, funny, and just spicy enough, so Dena was in a good mood when she got to her office and found a beautiful bouquet of flowers and a huge fruit basket from Julian Amsley, the president of the network, that said, Heard you wowed them at the luncheon. Thanks from your network family. She had almost forgotten the last, long evening until she started going through her messages and saw one that had come in while she was on the air:

  Baby Girl, we are thrilled you are coming home! Please don’t forget to call and let us know what flight you will be on so we can pick you up at the airport.

  Your Elmwood Springs family,

  Norma, Macky, and Aunt Elner

  The people standing outside her door at the water fountain heard a loud “Oh, God.” Dena leaned over her desk with her head in her hands wondering what in the world had possessed her to call and tell them she was coming to Missouri, of all places! Elmwood Springs was nothing more than the name of a town she had lived in for a short time as a child. Her father and grandparents were buried there, but o
ther than that it was nothing more to her than some vague memory. She didn’t even know where it was. And why Norma and Macky? Not only did she not know them well, she had not even thought of them in years. She couldn’t even remember how they were related. She knew that Norma was her third or fourth cousin, or something. But they might as well be perfect strangers. Sure, they always sent her birthday cards, Easter cards, and some kind of preserves at Christmas, and for years, no matter where she moved, they always found her and sent her a subscription to a religious magazine, some Daily Word thing that she promptly discarded along with the weird brown preserves. Norma and Macky were sweet people but she hadn’t even seen them but once and that was years before when they had come to New York for a few days. As nice as they were, it had been a strain. They had stayed at the Hilton and J.C., as a favor, had taken them to see the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building. All she did was get them tickets to Radio City and the Tonight Show and go to dinner with them and all they had talked about was meeting Wayne Newton, who had been a guest that night on the Tonight Show, and how really friendly he was. A friend of hers had arranged for them to go backstage after the show and meet him and get an autographed picture.

  Dena was baffled. Why, of all the people in her address book, had she picked them to call? Maybe it was because she had been having that dream about her mother and that house again; maybe it had been the aquavit. Whatever the reason, she wondered how she was going to get out of this one.

  This is not my fault, she thought. I’m going to kill J.C. He’s the one who ordered all those drinks in the first place.

  Going to Siberia

  Elmwood Springs, Missouri