Читать книгу The Future Homemakers of America - Laurie Graham - Страница 24

I said to Audrey, ‘Betty’s twittering around making party favours and popping corn and I feel like I’m going to a party in a minefield.’

‘Panic over,’ she said. ‘I think we’ve put a stop to that little adventure. And no casualties!’

I took along beer and a card, but I didn’t wear my pyjamas. I kinda forgot, but it could just have been my way of holding out on Lois. I still had a certain something on my mind, until I seen some genuine sign of her shaping up.

I said to Crystal, ‘You gonna play nicely with Sherry and Deana?’

‘Only if I don’t have to be the baby or the patience,’ she said. Mommies and Hospitals were about the only games the Gillis girls knew. And sure enough, when we got there they were hauling Sandie around like a sack of grain, telling her she had to get a Band-Aid on her head.

Crystal sat in the corner, going through Betty’s albums. She never minded entertaining herself. I could hear her making up names for all the people in the photos. ‘Princess Nancy and Princess Jennifer and Princess Crystal Margaret Dewey, and they live in a palace and they are allowed a dog of their very own.’

By the time the kids crashed it was ten o’clock and I was the only one left sober.

‘I’d like to toast a drink,’ Betty said, up-ending a Schlitz all over the rug. ‘To our birthday girl, Lois. And to my Ed, ’cause Friday it’ll be our ninth anniversary.’

‘Nine years!’ Lois said. ‘D’you get a emerald or something for that?’

‘Gosh, no. Nine is … Audrey, help me out here, is nine years cardboard or tin?’

‘Well, whatever you get, you’ve earned it.’ Lois was on the floor, sharing cushions and a bowl of potato chips with Gayle. ‘Nine years with Ed Gillis. You deserve a Purple Heart. Where’d you find that man, anyway?’

‘In Warsaw, Indiana,’ Betty said. ‘I was visiting with Glick cousins and Ed was the boy next door. It was love at first sight. How ’bout you, girls? Audrey? How about you and Lance. Was it love at first sight?’

Underneath that rosebud nightdress Betty had a heart of pure mush.

‘Kind of,’ Audrey said. ‘I liked his freckles first. I took my time deciding about the rest of him.’

Betty said, ‘And what brought you together?’

‘Naked ambition,’ Lois said. ‘Audrey’s the only one of us gonna make Mrs Full-Bird Colonel, and you heard it here first.’

Audrey smiled. Seemed like the peace was gonna hold.

‘Actually,’ she said, ‘I suppose it was Route 94 brought us together, ’cause I was in Chicago, and Lance was in Great Lakes, Illinois. I wouldn’t mind a buck for every time I drove that highway.’

Lois had it about right, though, Lance being Lance T. Rudman II, son of the late Commodore Lance T. Rudman, US Navy, Annapolis Academy, white gloves and all and Audrey having such a cut-glass style about her.

Anyway, I told them about me and Vern, and Gayle told us how she couldn’t ever remember a time when she didn’t know Okey. They used to swing on the same old truck tire and go to the same Baptist church. In 1946, he enlisted in the Army Air Corps, told her he’d be back for her and everybody said, ‘Hell’ll freeze over before any Jackson boy keeps his word.’ First thing he did after he made the Officer Candidate School was write her ‘You coming, then?’

‘A real romantic proposal, huh?’ Lois poured herself another shot. ‘Well, my turn now. I was a Roller Derby queen, with the Corona Park Demonettes, and I was just gri-i-i-nding my skates one time when this Bluesuiter come up to me, says, “You don’t mind my saying, miss, you got the prettiest hair I ever seen.” That was Herbert P. Moon, come up to the big city from McGuire on a weekend pass. I don’t know where he learned his manners, but he was a gentleman. He kept writing me, after he went back, and I never was much of a penpal. Next thing I knew, he got orders to Hawaii, wanted to know would I make him a happy man? That was a tough call. Never thought I’d end up marrying a woodchuck, though … ’ She squealed. ‘Speaking of woodchucks, I haven’t showed you what I got for my birthday. I’ve been waiting till Sandie’s little ears had stopped flapping for the night.’

She crawled across the floor, behind Betty’s couch, looking for her bag, sent the popcorn flying. ‘Hold on there, girls,’ she said. She had her hand inside the bag. ‘Now … ’ she said. ‘I want you to bear in mind, this is a hand-crafted item. It was lovingly fashioned by my dear husband, using his own fair hands, and I think I can say, without fear of contradiction, you’ll never have seen the like of it before. Girls, are you bored with those dreary gifts of Parisian scent? Do you dread unwrapping yet another pair of silky drawers trimmed with Chantilly lace and having to fake delight? Then why not drop a hint to the man in your life? You too could be the proud owner of a Herb Moon original … ’ she brung it out with a flourish, ‘carved … dachshund-type animal!’

I daresay that’s the way it goes if you’re a wood-carver. You hit a knot in the wood, you just got to go where it takes you and make the best of things. I guess there’s a lesson there for all of us. I could still see a hint of giraffe about that dachshund’s head, though.

We laughed till we thought we’d die. Woke Sherry up with all that screaming, holding our aching guts and begging for mercy.

‘Mommy,’ she said, standing there with her little eyes all scrunched up. ‘Mommy? Did Daddy shout at you again?’