The Sweet By and By Read online

  I lean in close enough to give him a peck. “Merry Christmas, Benny! Merry Christmas, Bernice.” I can’t believe I kissed a monkey doll.

  It startles both of us when Mathilda bangs on the door and pushes it wide-open with her usual tractor-trailer load full of medicine. “Sounds to me like you might want something to help you rest, Bernice, is that right?” she bellows.

  “No ma’am.” I speak up. “We’re fine, thank you. In the Christmas spirit, that’s all. How about you?”

  “The party’s over,” she says without even trying to hide her sarcasm, then backs out of the room, an eighteen-wheeler on an interstate highway. Roll on.

  “I’m going to go on to my room,” I say to Bernice. “You lie down for a little while, don’t you want to?”

  “Benny’s plum worn out.” She sighs, pulling down the covers on her bed.

  “I know he is. I’ll see you after while.”

  Bernice blows me a kiss, then cackles, waving her fingers like a movie star to her fans. I wheel myself across the hall. I honestly feel like I can get out of this chair with nobody’s help except Jack Daniel’s, but I think better of it and ring the nurse’s bell.

  “Do you need anything else?” Lorraine asks after she gets me situated on the bed.

  “No ma’am I don’t,” I say matter-of-factly. “I’m full of Christmas cheer.”

  “You’re full of something else too, and you better be glad it’s me that came down here.” Lorraine turns off the light, squeaking down the hall like she always does. I’m not worried though, she’s all talk. She’ll be back in the morning, same as always, and I’ll be where she left me.

  CHAPTER THREE

  RHONDA

  My car is one helluva sight, it looks like somebody’s living in it. I haven’t quite got to that point yet, but I did see a car yesterday at the Food Lion that made me wonder if somebody hadn’t beat me to it. That thing was filled up to the windows with newspapers, magazines, clothes, and McDonald’s bags, along with what looked like some T-shirts and underwear sprinkled around a pint-sized hole for the driver to sit in. I was tempted to sit there in the parking lot and wait and see who came out and got in that trash pile, but after about ten minutes, long enough to find my billfold and brush my hair out a little bit in the rearview mirror, I went on into the store. I loaded up my cart with the usual stuff, sugar, milk, eggs, a can of Maxwell House, but in the back of my mind I was still thinking about that car. Somewhere inside this store with me was the owner of all that mess, walking around just like I was, looking at hamburger buns and cereal and Cool Whip. A secret slob, and you probably wouldn’t even know it to see her. I know it was a her because of the underwear. Unless it was a him that likes lace better than Jockeys. Now that made me real curious to figure out exactly who it might be by looking up and down at everybody I passed in the aisles. Especially their eyes. I started wondering if I coulda picked out Charles Manson before he ever killed anybody just by looking at him doing something innocent, you know, like picking up packs of chicken thighs.

  Right now I ain’t doin a thing but killing time, I know it, sitting in another parking lot about to freeze to death in my own filthy car. At a rest home, for God’s sake. Hey, sometimes you do what you gotta do, isn’t that what they always say? Well some people say it. And I keep telling myself that, especially today. Of all the ways I could spend my day off, you’d think this would be the last place I’d want to go. I don’t know a soul in here. But I got a few ideas, that’s my problem, and my ideas are gonna cost me some money, so I figure this is as good a way as any to get some. So what if I’m having some second thoughts, anybody would, thinking about working in a place like this. I’m gonna take my time. I don’t want to go in yet, I’m gonna wait a little bit. It’s just a job, right? No need to make it into more than that. Shit, I’m gonna have to get myself a better attitude.

  There’s a ring of bushes around a brick sign with white letters that spell “Ridgecrest” and the “i” is dotted with an orange sun. I was able to find a parking place way down on one end of the semicircle of a driveway. I ain’t bothering nobody sitting here for a minute. How bad do I need the money anyway? I could work at the Target or somewhere, but I can’t really see myself standing at a cash register selling eye makeup to high school girls and family-size boxes of Huggies to tired women in sweatpants. And the truth is too, I’ll make more here, and I’ll be doin what it is I do. Hair. That’s my job. That’s what I do the other six days of the week. This is about one thing to me. Cash on the barrelhead. All so I can have my own shop, and I will too one day, you watch. I got lots of ideas about how to design it and everything. I started pulling pages out of magazines and putting em in a drawer by my bed.

  Damn, it’s cold. My breath is steaming the windows up. I should get out and go on in, but I need to look around some more from where I am, out of the way, here behind my wheel. A black man in a uniform is sitting at a picnic table off to one side of the building, smoking and laughing with an older man in coveralls holding a rake, both of em without any coats on. I see their breath just like it was smoke, in between puffs. They’re laughing awful hard at something. They get up when an ambulance backs up to the sidewalk. The doors open, and a bearded young guy and heavy woman in white get out and unload a gurney with somebody on it, blue-looking with a wild shock of white hair on top of his head. They’re heading for a set of double doors at the front entrance. The coverall man grabs one of the doors for them, and the gurney disappears inside.

  Last week sitting inside that building, I told the woman who interviewed me that I was comfortable around old people, and then I thought, hell I don’t even know any old people. My grandma was definitely old, but I ain’t so sure she was a person. More like a rattlesnake. Or an alligator. I don’t think I’ll freak out around any of em, unless they act crazy or wet themselves or something like that. Or if they die, that would be pretty bad, I’m really not into somebody checking out while I’ve got my hands in their hair.

  There’s prob’ly gonna be a bunch of em that can’t even talk. That’s all right with me. Might even be better that way. The last thing I need is a bunch of half-dead people trying to get into my business. And you know that’s how they’ll be. Asking am I married and do I have any kids. Well I can spare em the breath. One big old “NO” to all of the above and anything else they want to know about me.

  Okay girl, do what you came here to do. I twist my body around with the seat belt still on and start grabbing plastic bags full of everything you can think of from the backseat. I have to bring my own brushes, blow dryer, curlers, all my equipment. The only thing they supply is shampoo, conditioner, water, and a couple of secondhand hair dryers that sound like they run on Chevrolet parts. And I know they’re gonna have the cheapest shampoo you can find, but I can’t afford to bring in the stuff I use at Evelyn’s, where I work. She wouldn’t give me a discount anyway even though I’m in that salon six days a week. She’s like that. Nice to strangers but stingy with the people close to her. I never have understood that, oughta be the other way around. And there ain’t no telling how long it’s been since some of these women had their hair cut, much less colored. The director flat out told me that they’d been looking for somebody for three months because the woman they used to have got a divorce and moved to Tennessee with her three-year-old. “The patients thought a lot of her,” the director said, sighing like she was talking about somebody who died, twirling her index finger around the rim of a red coffee cup that said “NC State Wolfpack.” I thought she was trying to rub off the lipstick smears but she wasn’t doing much of a job of it.

  I do manage to get myself out of the car, but I open the door one more time and drain the last of the coffee from my travel mug. I could turn around and go home. I say out loud, “Rhonda, you can go home and open a Corona anytime you want to, it’s your day off. You’re the one who wants to have her own salon.” That thought alone, sounding like a mean schoolteacher in my head, makes me move in the direction
of the front door. It’s weird, I can feel my feet on the sidewalk but they’re going real slow like they’re not attached to me. I wore boots with heels and I shouldn’t have, but I’ll change once I’m in there. I don’t never wear heels this high except on a date, and even then I don’t like em cause they hurt my little toe on both feet. I wish I had asked if they’ve got a drink machine. I always like to get something to drink about halfway through the morning. I’m usually coffeed out, but I do like a Sprite or something with no caffeine. They’re bound to have a drink machine, they got a ton of people working here, and then the families too that come to see these people. Everybody gets thirsty.

  There’s nobody to open the door for me. The smoking men are long gone now. I wish I’da been smoking with em. I push my way through the first of two plate glass doors with a tiny foyer in between. A woman in a wheelchair is sitting in there, and how she got herself into that little room I don’t know except by wedging her chair against the door to keep it open while she inched herself in. She smiles, she ain’t got no teeth, then she reaches for my arm. I feel like she’s a monster in a haunted house trying to grab at me. She makes a moaning noise that sounds like either “say” or “safe.” I don’t look back at her. I pretend I don’t notice but she don’t buy it and so she yells again. “Same!!!” it sounds like. I ain’t got no idea what in the hell she’s saying so I keep walking up to the nurse station. This whole thing is gonna suck, I can tell already. There’s a couple of nurses inside a high circle of a desk messing with stacks of paper and file folders. I can’t see a door in it right away and I wonder how in the world did they get in there, it’s like a playpen.

  “Can you tell me please ma’am where Ada Everett’s office is?” I say to a woman with short cropped gray hair. She ought to color it and let it grow out some, she ain’t that old, I think. She ought not to be walking around with those stubs on her head, she looks like she’s been at Dix Hill, which is where they put crazy people who ain’t got nowhere nicer to be put. I saw a picture of somebody with hair like that in a magazine, living up on the side of a mountain in a convent or some kind of a monk building, and I’ll tell you one thing, that is not for me. The woman acts like she’s waiting for me to say more. What else do I need to tell her? “I was here last week,” I say, “but I can’t remember where that office is to save my life.” I’m trying to be pleasant even though it ain’t exactly how I feel.

  The woman points several times like she’s stabbing air, puncturing something with a straight pin. “First door,” she says, adding a few more quick finger points. What’s she got to be so ill about?

  Ada Everett is sipping from the same NC State mug I remember, flipping through pages of a date book. I bet she’s looking for whatever it is she needs to fill in on the big plastic wall calendar outside her door. Last time I was here she was erasing off all the stuff that was either already over or canceled. She uses all different colors for movie night, art class, bingo, and I guess whatever else they can come up with for these people to do stuck in here.

  “Mrs. Everett?” I move all my plastic bags into one hand and tap real light on the door frame. She does not look up at first. The phone startles her, and she answers, sort of pissed before she even says anything. I can tell from the way her nose is curled. It reminds me of Evelyn’s Pekingese, Miss Dolly, named after Dolly Parton of course, that she brings into the shop sometimes.

  “Yes. Yes.” Ada Everett sounds impatient with whoever is on the other end. “I already told him we needed Dr. Hammond’s approval.” She rolls her eyes. “All right. Yes, please do.” I wait in the doorway. Her expression changes like turning on a light in a dark room. “Oh hi,” she says. “Rhonda, right? Yes. Welcome, Rhonda. Listen, you don’t really have time to sit down. I believe I showed you the salon, didn’t I?”

  She is the most polite person I ever saw, even though she’s trying her best to push me out the door. It sort of scares me, that kind of cheerfulness. I don’t know why. You can’t be part of it. Like maybe she’s just had sex in a closet or something and is dying to tell somebody the secret, only the somebody ain’t me.

  “I wanted to check in with you first, that’s all,” I say. “I remember the way.”

  “Well that was kind of you dear, but you need to run on down there and get yourself organized. They’ll start lining up in the hall soon, and I know they’re all going to be so glad to see you. They’d much rather see you than me!” She laughs but it sounds like letting air out of a balloon in short spurts, a few short squeaks followed by a low sigh like she wore herself out.

  I say, “Well I’ll go on then,” but I think, like hell they want to see me, they don’t even know me, and I don’t really want em to. I’m here for work, not to find a best friend. I already got one of those.

  Outside the salon, there’s a line starting to form exactly like she said. This many heads means I’m gonna be here all day. Damn. A woman with a cane stands up on thin legs, but she looks strong. She’s got a strong mouth, it shows from the way she sets her lips. Her hair has been taken care of, that much I can say. I can’t help it, I always notice hair, it’s one of the first things I see, man or woman.

  “Excuse me,” she says. She is holding out her hand, and the veins make it look more blue than white. Pale blue like faded jeans against skin that looks like it ain’t never seen the sun. I shake her hand. I’ve never shaken hands with a woman before, and her skin feels like it’s barely hanging on the bones, saggy and thin. Her knuckles are big, she must have arthritis. She acts like she shakes hands with anybody in the world she takes a notion to, sorta proud and prissy together.

  “I’m Margaret Clayton,” she says. “You must be the new hair girl.”

  This woman’s gonna make my life harder than it needs to be, I can tell. I don’t think I like her. I want to use some shampoo and scissors, collect the cash, and get out. In fact, I meant to tell Ada Everett that I need to be paid in cash.

  This old woman must be able to tell she’s rubbed me the wrong way. “I don’t mean any harm, honey, I call everybody a girl, doesn’t matter how old they are. I call that woman right over there a girl too. The girl who lives across the hall from me.”

  She points to a woman only a few years younger than herself, clutching some kind of pillow to her chest. Maybe it’s an old doll. I think she’s talking to it. I’m thinking I’m gonna do just this one day since I’m already here, take the dab of money that goes along with it, and find me some other kind of job. Nobody told me there was crazy people in here. Just old people who can’t no longer take care of themselves, that’s what the job notice said. Now I already see one crazy one, and there’s the one who’s standing in front of me who might not be crazy but is bound to be trouble, I can smell it. Hey, I don’t give a damn what people do as long as it don’t cramp my style none. Live and let live, that’s what I tell everybody.

  “You waitin for a haircut?” I say. What a stupid thing to come out of my mouth seeing that we’re getting ready to go in a beauty shop.

  “I do need one,” she answers. “Along with the rest of the state of North Carolina from the looks of it. Listen shug, you think you might be able to take my friend and me a little bit early? I know you don’t open for another half hour, but it sure would make my back feel better not to have to sit for so long, and my friend there, well she’s marching to the beat of her own drum, which right now, is a little tom-tom, but could turn into the timpani at any given moment if you know what I mean.”

  “Timpani?” I say before I think. I don’t want her to know I don’t know what that is. She’s kind of fancy-acting for my taste.

  She ain’t even fazed. “We’ve got to take advantage of the peaceful moments. That’s true for all of us, don’t you think? What’s your name?”

  “Rhonda.” I follow her into the salon and put on my apron. I reckon she thinks she’s gonna be first come hell or high water.

  “I knew a Wanda once.” The woman sits herself down in the shampoo chair and starts
to lean her head back. Her friend, the crazy one, is lingering in the doorway without coming inside. “Bernice honey, come on in,” she says. “This is Wanda, come on and sit down. She’s the new hair girl.”

  “Rhonda,” I say, but she doesn’t let on that she even hears me. What do I care if she knows my name, or if any of em know? They prob’ly can’t even remember what day it is or who’s the president.

  “I’m going to stop talking, sugar, you just relax and do your work.” She closes her eyes. “You don’t have to worry about me distracting you for another second.”

  “No problem,” I say, sort of automatic. The friend is sitting in a dryer chair, still whispering to her pillow with a face. I’m gonna get through today, that’s it. I’m not making any promises about next week. I’ve got a good six days to think about it, I’ll see how I feel then. This ain’t nothing but a trial run.

  The warm water splashes my hands and the old woman’s forehead. I think she’s fast asleep with a smile on her face, but she surprises me.