The Sweet By and By Page 18

  “Y’all out walkin at night?” he asked.

  I thought for sure we’d been found out. “Pardon me?”

  “Nothin. I didn’t see any headlights pull in out there, and then y’all come on in. None of my business.”

  “No, no, that’s all right.” I nodded toward Bernice. “My friend lives down the road, and I’m keeping her company. She used to have a car, but somebody stole it right out from under her carport. Have you ever in your life?” I have no idea why in the world I added in a car theft, it came out of my mouth, but sometimes I think the more unbelievable something sounds, the more people believe it.

  “Number three—two banana splits!” the zombie girl called from the counter, and I fished in my pocket for the little scrap of paper she gave me when I paid.

  “Keep your seat,” our new neighbor said, “I’ll get it.” He returned smiling, satisfied with his good deed. “Here you go,” he said. “I wish I could eat somethin like this but I been tryin to cut back when I can. Doctor told me my cholesterol and blood pressure both are too high up.”

  “Son, when you get to be our age, you just sort of say, ‘damn the torpedoes’ about that kind of thing. I know it’s valuable information for some people, but I can barely think about things I need to, much less about what’s in everything I put in my mouth.”

  “Is that right?” He smiled even bigger.

  “Yes sir, it is. When it’s my time, I will go willingly. Dr. Shiraka says I have the blood pressure of a teenager, and I say well then if I drop dead tomorrow I guess that’s one more girl cut down in her prime, ain’t that right, Bernice?”

  Bernice’s head popped up with a mouthful of strawberry sauce and whipped cream. “Right,” she answered. She was already so busy mashing up ice cream, bananas, and nuts into a soup that she looked at me like she had no idea who was even talking to her. That’s what I call being focused on what you’re doing.

  “Yes ma’am, well that’s wonderful to know you’re doin so good.” He sat back down on the edge of the booth closest to Bernice and me. “Tell you what, y’all ladies want me to run you back down the road home?”

  “Excuse me?” I said.

  “I’ve got a truck right there, haven’t I?” he said kindly, pointing toward the plate glass windows which made me feel like we were in a fish tank bathed in neon light. “I’m goin on into Raleigh but I’ll be glad to drop you.”

  Now I know all about strangers in a Tastee-Freez turning out to be ax murderers or kidnappers; I watch more than enough television. But once in a while I think it’s bound to be all right to trust your instincts. I sure couldn’t picture Bernice and me as candidates for some big ransom, and he seemed like a nice enough man. It had been a long time since anybody whatsoever other than Bernice or Lorraine brought me anything of their own free will, just to be nice, the way he brought us over our ice cream. I saw the girl at the counter talk to him like she knew him, so he must have been pretty regular there, not like somebody drifting through.

  “What would you say if I told you we wanted to go to Raleigh?” I tried the words on for size.

  “I used to live in Raleigh, North Carolina!” Bernice cried out, sucking on a maraschino cherry with the stem hanging out of her mouth.

  I turned to her. “Yes you did, sugar, the one and only.” I turned back to my unsuspecting chauffeur-in-waiting.

  “What in the world business do y’all ladies have in Raleigh at nighttime?”

  “Same as anybody else.” I realized I sounded defensive. “Bernice wants to see the Capitol building—she hasn’t been in years—and I’m going to the Art Museum. We thought we’d either try to find somebody to take us or rent a car in the morning, but we weren’t looking forward to that part. You could just leave us off at the Hilton, and don’t worry one minute, we can pay every bit of our own way. We always have and always will.”

  Something changed in his face. I could tell he was not about to touch us with a ten-foot pole.

  “I’ll just drop y’all at home,” he answered.

  He knew that I knew we had been found out. I squared my jaw and started over. “All right, here it is—plain as I know how to make it, son. We’re not supposed to be here, you figured that out without my help. No disrespect intended, but where we are supposed to be is no concern of yours—that is unless you’re blood kin, which you clearly are not. And the truth is, whether we want to or not, we will go back to where we’re supposed to be, it’s just a matter of when.”

  I looked to Bernice, then sporting a chocolate mustache, for a response that she didn’t offer, so I continued. “What happens between now and the time some responsible citizen or family member fetches us remains to be seen. You can either let us ride with you for one precious hour of your time and know that you’re protecting us from whatever mess we might get into on our own, or you can leave us here with our Banana Barge Specials and go on about your business, in which case we’re still not where we’re supposed to be, and we’re still not going back until somebody makes us.”

  Bernice chimed in, “We’re not going.”

  “Thank you, honey,” I said.

  We waited for him to reply to what I thought was a very convincing line of reasoning on my part. We didn’t have to wait long. “I don’t think so, ladies.”

  I pushed. “I don’t know what you’re worried about. We’re the ones who’ve got something to worry about. You could walk right out of here, call the police, and tell them there’s two old ladies in the Tastee-Freez who somebody’s gonna be looking for if they aren’t already.”

  “I wouldn’t do that. Hey, what y’all do is none of my business.”

  “Exactly,” I shot back. “That’s exactly right.”

  I saw something register in his eyes. “You oughta be a lawyer or somethin, you know that? You sure can talk.”

  “Is that a yes? You’re going there anyway.”

  “I don’t know. Okay.” He put on his Windbreaker. We followed, but not too close. I wanted us to leave exactly the way we came in, by ourselves. Bernice stopped in front of the raccoon-eyed girl behind the counter and said, “You make a good banana split. Big too. You do good work in ice cream. You can make yourself some good money in ice cream.”

  I heard the Raccoon whisper, “Go to hell.”

  I ignored it. “Thank you very much! Good night!” I said, pushing open the door with Bernice’s help, and we were back in the parking lot. Our friend had already started the truck and pulled it around so we wouldn’t have to walk any further than necessary. It’s gotten to the point that I can’t walk in anything except a shoe with almost no heel, and there I was wearing church shoes, so I was thankful. We got up into the cab with some help. We were awkward like dead weight, so it must have felt like trying to haul two pianos up through a second-story window.

  As soon as we were on the road, I started not feeling good. Bernice knew even without my saying anything because she said, “You look sick. Are you gonna vomit?” Leave it to her to cut right to the meat of something. “No ma’am I am not,” I said determinedly, but I wasn’t so sure. Maybe it was the excitement of doing something, I don’t know. I didn’t care. After riding a while with my eyes closed I felt better, and soon our friend was helping us down from the truck. He handed me his phone number. “No thank you,” I said, “I appreciate it, but your commitment to Bernice and me is hereby finished, sir. We are indebted to you for your kindness.”

  “You sure?” he stuck his head out of the rolled down window. I nodded to reiterate. “Well, y’all stay out of trouble. Adios then,” and he drove away, probably to another Tastee-Freez eventually, in another dark town.

  The lobby of the Raleigh Hilton had undergone a major renovation since the last time I was there, but that had been so long ago I’m not sure they had electricity. I guess change is good, everybody always says it is, but you never really know which changes will end up being good and which ones will later be called mistakes. The decor of the Hilton definitely fell into the “mista
ke” category. One whole end of the lobby was a glassed-in open atrium thing with flowery bamboo sofas and so many plants hanging from the ceiling that it looked like the Amazon had come to North Carolina. It was way too humid, so I pulled off my jacket and noticed Bernice fanning herself with her pocketbook. I guess it never occurred to anybody that it would be like a greenhouse with all those plants, even at night, unless they ran the air conditioner all year long.

  We paused by the door and Bernice whispered, “Are we gonna stay all night?”

  “We most certainly are.” I was indignant in case anybody could overhear. “Aren’t we simply two ladies in search of accommodation? Just have a seat somewhere over there in Costa Rica. Betsy Ross will love being around all those trees.”

  I walked on thick turquoise carpet to the front desk. A young man there was reading a magazine. He was very suntanned as though he’d been in Florida on vacation and was wearing a lot of silver rings. The lobby was empty; it was after eleven. Raleigh had never been a night owl kind of place, and that didn’t bother me. I had never stayed up all night anyway except for a couple of New Year’s Eves in Atlanta.

  As soon as the boy at the desk spotted me, he snapped to attention. “Good evening, my name is Andrew, how can I assist you?” He had big white teeth and blue eyes the color of the sky. I wanted to hug him he was so cute.

  “Ma’am?” He was waiting.

  “Yes, yes you can. May we have a room please, my friend and I?”

  “Are we holding a reservation for you?” He jangled a silver bracelet on one wrist.

  “We don’t have one; we’re here spur of the moment. I think that’s the best way to travel, don’t you?”

  “I hope I have something left.” He rolled his eyes like he was letting me in on a secret. “There’s a marching band convention through the weekend. Regional Finals.”

  “How about that.” I raised my eyebrows, turning to Bernice to get her attention, but all I could see was her head bobbing in and out of all those trees and vines under glass.

  My movie star Andrew looked up from a blue computer screen. “I do have one room with a king if you don’t mind sleeping together. I mean sharing. Sorry.” He jangled the bracelet around his face, flustered.

  “We’ll take it; that’ll be just fine.”

  I took the room keys from the counter and turned around to catch Bernice with black dirt all over her blouse, holding a handful of exotic plants, all ripped up by the roots. “You’ve got to weed out a garden or it won’t grow!” she yelled. I got to her as fast as I could. “Give me those!” I crammed everything she had collected behind some species of potted palm, pulling her with me to the elevator, dirt and all.

  What I heard through the wall in the middle of the night sounded like “Love Me Tender,” done up-beat style on the trombone, but whoever was playing kept messing up and going back to the beginning to start over, which was enough to drive anybody insane. I’m not a musician, but I do not believe “Love Me Tender” is a hard song to play, and on the third or fourth butchering, I gave up and got out of bed. Bernice was sound asleep; I knew from experience that she could snore through a tornado. Betsy Ross lay crushed under her neck. They both looked peaceful as cherubs. I thought if I could get a swallow of something to drink I might be able to get to sleep too. I missed Lorraine. She made sure there was a whole Co-Cola on my bed table every night, not a glass of sour cranberry juice like some of those other girls brought.

  My neighbor finally switched songs. Elvis is not made for the trombone. I’ve confessed that I was never a musician, but whoever thought they were going to win a marching band contest by playing Elvis was even less of one. I tried to picture a clever band director somewhere up in Illinois or Ohio thinking, “We’ll have those North Carolina judges right where we want em if we do an Elvis medley.” I could have told them they would stand a lot better chance with “Stars and Stripes Forever” and anybody knows how overused that old thing is. At least it was meant to be played by a band. Sometimes you can change what a thing is meant for, but more times you can’t, no matter what you do. The trick is knowing the difference. Think about what I’m saying the next time you hear a marching band try to play “Moon River.”

  I tried to settle into a stiff wing chair by the window and turned on the TV with the volume way down. Bernice was lying still as a log. I put my head back and watched a woman say straight into the camera that she had had sex with her mother, father, and son, but she didn’t know it because she was drunk so much of the time. I am not a big drinker, but on those few occasions when I have imbibed, I can tell you one thing. I don’t care how drunk you are, you know if you’re in bed with your mother. Whenever I watch these shows, Lorraine says, “Why do you watch this mess? Where do they find these people?” and I tell her they must not be very hard to find because there’s no shortage of them. The woman on TV droned on about her sex life. Her voice got steadily softer and lower until it started to sound like a man. I stopped trying to listen. Then there were more voices, all talking at the same time but not saying words. The beginnings of daylight made me squint. I woke up, my neck aching, still in the chair.

  “Bernice,” I said. My voice was hoarse from sleep. Sunlight was pouring through the thin shiny curtains. “Bernice honey, get up. I’m calling Ann to come get us. Wake up.”

  She had the sheet pulled up so it almost covered her head, with Betsy Ross tossed to one side. I wanted to go over and give her a little shake, but I had to work out my arthritis some before I could do anything as bold as take a step. “You can’t hide all day, Bernice. Get up from there. We’re going home now. You know we’ve got to go home, sugar.” I was mildly disgusted by how cheerful I sounded first thing in the morning.

  Once I got to her, I did the one thing I knew would get some action out of my partner in crime. I snatched Betsy Ross, knowing that I was the only person in the world besides Rhonda who could do so without causing Armageddon. She was still. I pulled down the sheet from her head.

  “Not now, Bernice.” That’s what came out. “Not now.” No one heard.

  I waited for Ann in the lobby, planting myself on a wicker love seat in the middle of the glassed-in rainforest, surrounded by boys and girls in green and gold uniforms with big white plumes on their hats. Shining gold and silver metal gleamed on everything from tubas to flutes all over the room.

  Don’t believe it the next time somebody tells you they’ve seen a peaceful smile on the face of a dead person. They’re liars. What you see is nothing. I needed that woman. I still do.

  I sank down deeper into the chair cushion and felt genuinely tired for the first time. I closed my eyes lightly. I could see the two of us, Bernice and me, inching our way across the parking lot in the dark like drunk snails. We found our freedom at a Tastee-Freez. For a few hours, we got to be like people who come and go and eat and sleep when they want to. I remember holding Bernice’s arm, feeling like a wildcat. She was beside herself, pointing at the oversized pictures of ice cream creations. “I don’t want any pineapple sauce, just strawberry,” she said. “Lots of strawberry.”

  “We can have anything we want,” I told her.

  “One—two—three—four!” a voice pierced my ears, startling me back to the present. I opened my eyes, for a moment I panicked. I thought the Hilton was having a fire drill. Then snare drums rolled, a high pitched whistle blew, and the “Stars and Stripes Forever” blared full throttle. Thunder sounded in my head, and I looked around me. Horns of all shapes and sizes protruded from red faces of children blowing with all the wind God gave them. There must have been sixty, seventy, eighty. I lowered my shoulders and leaned my head back a second time. Bernice was there again, still there, ice cream dripping from her chin. I felt Betsy Ross in my lap, she was staring up at me, eyeless. If somebody had asked me in that moment what joy was, I would have had to say John Philip Sousa in a tropical garden in downtown Raleigh. If there’s a God, and I have always believed so, those children won a trophy that day. It should ha
ve been the biggest trophy in the whole state of North Carolina. To hell with Elvis.

  “Mama? Mama are you all right?” I heard Ann call out over the sound of the brass. I didn’t see her immediately, but I could smell her perfume and hear her jewelry clanking behind me. She appeared in front of my face. “I’m so sorry, Mama. I don’t know what to say, I’m torn up. Let’s go home.”

  She pulled me to my feet. “What did you say?” I yelled as loud as I could. Ann guided me gently with her arm around my waist. I almost ran into a chair and stopped to look at a chubby girl with pigtails wearing a green and gold uniform, standing by herself in between two hibiscus plants. She was playing the Sousa piccolo solo with all of her heart in it. “Mama, we need to go,” Ann comforted me, and then to herself, “I’ve never heard such a racket in my life inside a building.” I went with her unbegrudgingly, she was there to help me, but I glanced back at the piccolo player. I needed to see her again. Bright morning rays poured through the glass over her head and made her whole body shine. The music played on. I think she had wings.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  RHONDA

  I’ll wash her hair and rinse it real good before I tease it. I’m not gonna tease it too much though cause she didn’t like that. She mashed her hair down with her hands every time I tried to do anything with it to make it look fuller. I’ve got to put on a sweater before I can do anything. I’m freezing in this basement. I know they have to keep it this way, but I can’t concentrate. I’m trying to get her situated so I can work on her better, but her head don’t move much at all. I remembered to bring a little lavender eye pillow that I got out of a catalog. It said it was for relaxing and feeling rejuvenated, but I tried it and found out I’d just as soon smoke a cigarette. I’m gonna put it over her eyes, real gentle. I don’t want to look at her eyes; I’m scared they might open up part way. They put what they call eye caps under her lids to help keep em closed, that’s what Paul Gaines told me and he works here so he oughta know. Still, he said changes are happening all the time in a dead body. I wish he hadn’t called her a dead body just because he’s used to messing with dead people all the time. She’s Bernice to me. Bernice.