Rush Page 3

  “I ran into her earlier. Actually it was the other way around. She ran into me. For real. Whacked my nose with her cell phone.” I reach up to massage it. “Still sore.”

  “She gone be trouble. You mark my word.”

  “You think so?”

  “I know so. Talking about us being the envy of all our friends. It’s a nice job. But we don’t even have benefits.” She settles back against the wall, crosses her arms over her chest. “Shoot.”

  I reach for my pocketbook.

  “Where you headed?”

  “Home. I’ve got bills to pay.” I sigh at the thought of all that work, then change my mind. I’m more tired than I thought.

  “You got enough this month?”

  “Not really.” I lean my head back on the wall next to hers. “Now that school’s back things will get better, though. How ’bout you?”

  “I’m all right.” She folds her hands tightly on top of her big middle, like she’s feeling what’s on the inside. “I don’t buy much no more. Don’t even get my hair done.” She glances at my new weave with disapproving eyes. “Hmmph.”

  I ignore her. It’s my head, not hers. “Summertime, I tend to fall behind. I haven’t made a payment on my college fund since April.”

  She looks at me like she just heard a dog say hello. “You still doing that?”

  “Every chance I get.”

  “How much you got in there now?”

  “Close to eight thousand, I believe.”

  “What?” Fee rears back, bumps her head on the wall. Her eyes are big and round, like full moons. “You got eight thousand dollars!”

  I nod. “You’d be surprised how interest compounds over twenty-five years.”

  “You never touched it? Not even once?”

  “No, ma’am. Not mine to touch.”

  Fee relaxes her shoulders, then sucks in a big breath of air. “That’s a beautiful thing you’re doing, baby.” She reaches over to rub my thigh. “Your mama would be proud.”

  “I know she would. She’s the one who suggested it.”

  Right about then music blasts from the back terrace and through the spaces in the fence we see several sisters pouring out of the double set of French doors, laughing and carrying on like it’s the most fun day of their lives. We can’t make out anything they’re saying; the music is too loud. Rush meeting must have let out early.

  “Lord, I never thought I’d see the day,” I say. “White girls in love with rap.”

  “Mmm-hmm,” Fee replies. “I know that’s right.”

  “Usher yes, but hard rap? That tickles me.”

  Neither of us talks for a while. We simply sit and listen to the laughter.

  “What must that be like?” Aunt Fee says after a few minutes have passed.

  “What’s what like?”

  “To laugh like you don’t have a care in the world.” There’s no resentment in her tone. Seems like she’s just curious. Then she leans down, picks up her pocketbook. Now she’s ready to go.

  “Might seem that way tonight,” I tell her. “But it’s not always smooth sailing over there. That I know. They tell me their secrets.”

  Fee stands up, slings her pocketbook over her shoulder. “I hear what you’re sayin’. Just makes that voyage a whole lot smoother when you’ve got the money to take a big ship. See you tomorrow, baby.”

  “Why don’t you take a lap around campus with me?”

  She peers at me like I’m crazy.

  “You better get your butt moving,” I say with a chuckle. “If you plan to live long.”

  “Hmmph.” She leans down, picks up the Gatorade bottle she uses as a spittoon, and spits inside.

  FIVE

  MISS PEARL

  The lines on this county road are starting to blur. It’s just past dusk and these bones of mine are weary. Move-in day wears me out like I’ve been chopping wood—something I’ve not done and have no plans of ever doing, but God gave me an imagination. I know how to use it, too, even if it does get me in trouble sometimes. Like now, when it drifts back onto— Uh-oh, Pearl, look out for that deer.

  A few feet ahead there’s a multipoint buck poking his big head out from the right side of the road. Here he comes, leaping out in front of me. I slam on the brakes, hear the sound of squealing tires on pavement. Before I know it I’m skidding in circles all over the road. My hands grip the steering wheel so hard, my knuckles turn pale. My head jerks with every spin. People talk about their life flashing before their eyes. Lord Jesus, I think I just saw mine.

  When I finally regain control and pull off onto the shoulder, I hear loose rocks biting at my tires. I stop the car and slump over the steering wheel. My heart is pumping faster than an oil jack. With every pound inside my chest I’m praising God and crying at the same time, Thank You, Jesus. Thank You, Jesus. If there had been a car coming in the opposite direction I would be dead. I listen to myself breathe, in and out, in and out. Feeling my chest rise and fall, a hundred miles an hour. I can hear the steady, hard, thump-thump of my heart. My mind gets going again and before long I get angry. Now I am furious. And that fury is directed at nobody but myself. There’s not but a fraction of tread left on my tires. Instead of buying new ones I spent my savings on my damn hair.

  After looking over my shoulder, I pull back out onto the road. There aren’t but a few miles left between here and home. So I drive well under the speed limit the rest of the way and, before I know it, my mind wanders off again to something that makes me almost as angry, but I can’t do a thing about: All the low-income folks have been forced to the outskirts of town into Yalobusha and Panola Counties.

  It takes thirty to forty minutes now to drive in to work. I read in the Oxford Eagle last week that people are calling it gentrification. I called on an apartment in Oxford last year and the lady said she wanted nine hundred dollars a month for a room. Sharing both a kitchen and a den. “Thank you anyway,” I told her, then hung up the phone. I don’t know what they think we’re going to do. Spending so much of our money on gas when the minimum wage in Mississippi isn’t but $7.25 an hour. Thankfully I’m making more than that.

  When I finally open the door to my apartment, it’s pitch black inside. I flick on the overhead light, look around, and let out the breath it seems I’ve been holding since that deer ran out in front of me. My place is spotless and smells sweet thanks to the diffuser Kate Farley’s mama gave me last year.

  In anticipation of what’s to come, I had scrubbed both my kitchen and my bathroom two days ago, and vacuumed the carpet and dusted everything—including the light bulbs—the day before that. I had to do a master clean before school starts back and all the mamas start calling me. From now till winter break my extra time will be swallowed up whole.

  I drop my pocketbook down on the sofa where I always keep it. As I head toward the bathroom something dark and dingy catches my eye; the one thing I ran out of time to clean. Mama would not be pleased, in fact, if she could see it, she would be downright ashamed. The tarnish is thick. I can’t even make out the pretty garden of roses swirling through each piece.

  I walk over to where it stays and pick up the small cream pitcher. It once belonged to Mrs. McKinney. She willed it to Mama when she died. Said Mama always kept it looking magnificent, the way an heirloom silver service should look, and that she deserved to have it for her own.

  Mama said it was hard when Mrs. McKinney’s daughter, Daphne, learned of her mother’s wishes because she had had her eye on it. Mama tried giving it back, but Mrs. McKinney’s oldest son, William, said no. He said his mother meant for Ruby to have it and that it was going to her house, period.

  When Mama left it to me she made me promise I’d never sell it. She wanted it kept in the family, and asked me to pass it down to my own child. But that didn’t work out. Several times now, I’ve wanted to thank William for his generosity. But Aunt Fee says it’s always best to let sleeping dogs lie.

  There are five pieces—all sterling silver, except the nice bi
g tray it sits on, and that’s silver plate. I brought it in to show Mama Carla one day and she told me it’s probably worth close to seven thousand dollars. By now, she said, it may be worth more than that, and I need to have it insured. Maybe one day, after I get my health insured, we can give thought to that.

  SIX

  WILDA

  Let me start by getting something out of the way. I am one of those women who compares herself to others. Yes, I’m well aware of what healthy people think about that, and I agree, it’s exhausting. Trust me, if I could do something about it I would. I’m constantly worried I’m not good enough, smart enough, or attractive enough. Lord knows I weigh too much, but at fifty-eight, I’ve come to accept that malady.

  As long as I’m baring my soul, I may as well make a second confession. This is somewhat confidential because I don’t want every Kim, Jane, and Mary to know my personal business, nor can I afford the judgment. I tend to believe I’m dying. As the saying goes, I’m always waiting on the other shoe to drop. If I even hear the word “cancer,” any joy I may be experiencing at the moment screeches to a halt; my mind flips a 180 and I imagine I’m lying in a hospital bed with a chemo drip attached to my chest.

  Likewise, if I read an article about someone who has recently contracted, say, Lyme disease, I’m off to my laptop frantically googling the early symptoms. For the next few days, I’m certain I’m experiencing headaches, fatigue, and joint pain. I have Hysterical Lyme Disease.

  I wasn’t like this in my early years. It didn’t happen until my mid-thirties. The best I can figure is that my later-in-life infertility was the catalyst for my fear of doom. Sometimes—well, all the time—I can’t help but wonder what the heck went wrong down there. Because I wasn’t infertile to begin with. I had given birth to two perfectly healthy little boys before I turned twenty-eight.

  Ironically I grew up not knowing the first thing about boys. I was the eldest of two girls, with no brothers or male cousins, and I attended an all-girls school. Daddy died when I was eight and my only uncle lived seven hours away from Memphis in Gulfport, Mississippi. My entire childhood revolved around periods and panties. Once I became a wife, not giving birth to a daughter had never once crossed my mind. Until I became infertile.

  To make matters worse, my own mother, Eleanor Dyson, dubbed my womb “the hostile uterus.” That happened after she had the boys for an entire weekend. Mama, who lived less than three miles away, had invited the boys to “Mimi Camp,” an entire weekend full of fun with their grandmother. Only five hours into camp, Jackson, age four, had scribbled on Mama’s brand-new yellow couch with a fresh tube of lipstick he had found in her purse. When she called with a camp report later that evening, after the boys were in bed, she declared my uterus “hostile.” “Little girls,” she added, “would never do something that destructive.”

  The good Lord must know what He’s doing, was the only thought that gave me comfort while Haynes and I raised our two little mischief-makers. I was twenty-six when Cooper was born and twenty-eight when Jackson came along. By the time I was thirty-nine, despite not having used birth control for eleven years, I threw in the towel and flat gave up all hope of ever dressing a little girl in hand-smocked batiste dresses from Memphis’s finest children’s store, The Women’s Exchange. Like my mother had said time and time again, “I guess girls aren’t in the cards for you, Wilda.”

  What’s more remarkable? I wasn’t that sad about it. Curious as to the reason why—most definitely—but not sad. Beside the fact that I rarely got a break, a weekend away from the boy-grind every now and then, there was nothing to be sad about. Haynes and I had two perfectly healthy, albeit strong-willed, beautiful boys. Their athleticism rivaled that of any other boys in their classes. Haynes swore they were each destined to be Ole Miss football players, which suited me just fine since that was our alma mater.

  A few years later, still not using birth control but having a much-better-than-average sex life, I accidentally brought up my infertility while on a phone call to Mama. I say “accidentally” because I knew better. “I had my pap this morning,” I began. “Dr. Patterson still can’t find anything wrong with me. Don’t you find it curious I got pregnant with Cooper and Jackson no problem at all?”

  “Why Wilda,” Mama said with a tsk. “I don’t know why you’re still bringing this up, dear. You’re in early menopause.”

  “Early menopause!” Oh dear God, I thought, there goes my body, my sleep, our sex life. “I hadn’t thought about that.”

  “Well. Even if it’s not, it’s too late, honey. You’re thirty-nine years old, for heaven’s sake.”

  “That’s not too—”

  “It’s downright dangerous for a woman your age to have a child. Your chances of Down syndrome skyrocketed once you turned thirty-five.”

  I tried to object. “That’s a rarity, Mother. All kinds of women are having healthy babies later in life. Look at Julianne Moore and Christie Brink—”

  “In vitro. They all had in vitro. I read all about it in People. Don’t tell me you’re thinking of taking that route. It’s ten thousand dollahs a pop.” Mama knew full well that Haynes and I couldn’t afford IVF—not that I would even consider it after two healthy children.

  “Never mind, Mother. I just thought you’d want to know that there is something wrong with me down there.”

  “Oh for gosh sakes, Wilda. I didn’t raise you to be a prophet of doom.”

  I was dying to slam the phone down and scream, “Look who the kettle learned it from!” But I was raised never to talk back to my mother, so I bit my tongue. And faked a reason to hang up. Oh dear God, I thought in horror, like mother like daughter.

  Wilda, by the way, is not pronounced Wild-uh. It’s Will-duh. And I’m not wild about it if that’s what you’re wondering.

  “Things can turn on a dime” was another of the clichés Mama often used as if it were a proverb I needed to live by. One week to the day after my pap smear, Dr. Patterson’s nurse left a message on my answering machine to please call her back. Upon hearing her voice, I slumped into the chair beside the phone in the kitchen and spiraled down a hundred-foot well of despair. There it was. The Big C. Why hadn’t I eaten better and exercised more often? It was my own fault. How I managed to pick up the phone and dial Haynes’s number was beyond me.

  “I’ll be dead in six months!” I shrieked the minute he picked up his office line. I didn’t even wait for his hello.

  “Oh no,” he said wryly, no concern in his voice whatsoever. This was not my first near-death experience.

  “Haynes! At least act like you’re concerned.”

  “I am concerned, Wilda. But we’ve been here before. What’s wrong now?” I could envision him—elbow propped on the desk, thumb and two fingers supporting his forehead, eyes rolling.

  “Is someone in your office?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?” I half believed Frank could be sitting across from him.

  “Of course I’m sure. What’s the problem?”

  “The nurse from Dr. Patterson’s office left a message on our answering machine. I just got home from picking up the boys from football practice and there it was.”

  “And?”

  “She said I needed to call her back.”

  “Then call her back.”

  “I can’t just call her back. I have to be mentally prepared.”

  In his calmest Haynes voice he said, “Didn’t you have that female test recently?”

  “Yes.”

  “She just wants to give you the results. Call her back.”

  I was the opposite of calm. “Don’t you know anything? They don’t call you with a good result. They mail you a card. The only time they call you is when it’s bad.” My voice cracked. “Our boys will grow up without a mother. Poor things.”

  “Wilda.”

  “Will you call her for me?”

  “Oh for the love of—” There was a long, annoyed pause. “What’s the number?”

 
I let out a sigh of relief. “Thank you. I owe you,” I said after giving him the number.

  “It might take awhile to get her, but I’ll call you as soon as I hear. Everything is going to be fine.”

  “I’ll be right by the phone.” I could hear him readying to hang up. “But you don’t know it’s fine,” I added just in time. “I might need to call Frank and warn him. You’ll need the emotional support once you hear the news.” Haynes’s law partner was always good in a crisis. He had stepped in when Sam Leatherberry’s wife of twenty-eight years told him she had met another woman.

  “You are fine.” He hung up without a goodbye.

  After fifteen minutes of staring at the phone and no Haynes, my mind raced. I flew into our bedroom. Internet searching was becoming popular back then, but I was never far from my Mayo Clinic Family Health Book. I opened the drawer on my nightstand, used all my forearm strength to remove it. With shaking hands, I lowered myself onto the edge of our bed and flipped the pages of the monster 1,500-page manual back to the index. My pointer finger scanned the listings until I landed on it. Cancer, cervical, page 943. As my pulse banged in my ears, I read the entire listing. Hysterectomy, good survival rate if caught in time, causes, symptoms, risk factors, complications, treatments—chemotherapy, questions to ask the doctor.

  Clutching the heavy manual to my chest, I rose slowly from the bed and death-marched down the hall toward the kitchen, glancing through the French doors at my boys throwing a football in the backyard. I finally had the answer to my infertility. If only I could have a redo. I’d go to the gym five days a week. I’d never let another candy bar pass my lips.

  A solid thirty minutes passed with no Haynes. Before hyperventilation had a chance to set in, I picked up the phone to call him and happened to glance out the front kitchen window. My life passed before my eyes at that very moment. Haynes’s white SUV pulled slowly into the driveway, like a hearse arriving for its corpse. I mentally calculated that if the nurse had given Haynes the bad news within the first few minutes of the phone call, he’d had enough time to dash out of his office in tears, run to his car, and make it home that fast.