“Wait a few minutes. I’m sure lunch will be here soon.” Lisa glanced at her father, who slept in the easy chair, his short legs crossed at the ankles. His face was even more deeply lined than her mother’s, but with his eyes closed and his mouth slack, he looked almost youthful.
“But I’m hungry!”
“So am I, but you don’t hear me complaining.”
Her mother fell silent, then her hand clawed at her neckline again. “I need to go to the bathroom. I need you to help me.”
Lisa looked away and resisted the urge to roll her eyes. How long could she stall the request? Her mother was wearing an adult diaper, but it had to be saturated by now. A nurse from home health care had been scheduled to stop by this morning, but she hadn’t come. And after the children arrived, Lisa couldn’t take the time to phone the elder-care agency.
She suppressed a sigh. “Do you really have to go? Or are you only trying to distract me from everything I need to do?”
Her mother’s eyes lifted at the corners. “I really have to go.”
Lisa extended her arm and moved toward the couch. “Pull up, then. Let’s get this over with.”
In a clumsily choreographed ballet, she helped her mother rise from the sofa and move down the hall to the small bathroom. Though she’d had a bath last night, her mother smelled faintly sour, an odor Lisa would always associate with elderly people and medications.
In the bathroom, her mother clutched the bunched-up hem of her housedress while Lisa unfastened the plastic tabs and peeled away the soaked diaper.
“All right.” She tossed the diaper into the trash pail. “Let me help you sit—”
Too late. Her mother’s eyes widened in consternation as a yellow stream trickled onto her socks, the faded pink rug, and the black-and- white tiled floor.
Lisa groaned and closed her eyes. Why couldn’t she be like her friends and raise
babies
? Children eventually learned to use the toilet; parents unlearned a little every day.
She pressed the back of her hand to her forehead and held her breath, then released it in a rush. No sense raging over this, no matter how short her emotional fuse. No sense crying, either. Her mother would only cry, too, and then she’d need wiping at both ends.
“Oh, Mom.” Lisa looked at her mother, caught those vivid blue eyes, and wondered how much reason remained behind that wide-eyed expression. Her mother was slipping away, her father already mostly gone, and they were all Lisa had—unless, of course, you counted the six boisterous children who showed up weekday mornings to color and eat peanut butter crackers while their mothers shopped downtown at Sway & Cake and Mario’s, then lunched at the Library Bistro.
If it weren’t for the weekends, when a volunteer from Seattle Eldercare allowed Lisa to get out of the house and go to church, she’d have lost her mind long ago.
Thank God, she’d almost made it through the week.
She pulled the box of adult diapers from under the sink. After tucking a diaper under her arm, she turned on the faucet, waited for the water to warm, and then wet a washcloth. The water was still a little chilly, but maybe the shock would serve as negative reinforcement.
At the touch of the cold cloth, her mother shimmied toward the bathtub.
“You’ve got to hold still, Mom.” Lisa knelt to clean her mother’s legs, then felt the pressure of a gnarled hand on her head.
“You were a little girl when I put up this wallpaper,” her mother said, apparently oblivious to Lisa’s ministrations. “You didn’t like to take a bath. I used to think you were afraid of the drain, but Daddy said you were afraid of the wallpaper.”
Lisa glanced at the wall, where hundreds of faded roses bloomed in riotous confusion. “Why would I be afraid of flowers?”
“You were a little scaredy-cat. Afraid of your own shadow, you were, afraid of the bed, the dark, the closet, the dog, the bed, the closet—”
“I wasn’t afraid, Mom,” Lisa snapped, though she wondered if that was true.
Had
she been afraid? Aside from a few mental images evoked by faded snapshots, she had few memories of childhood.
If her early years had been as boring as the years that followed, perhaps nothing in them was worth remembering.
She grabbed the clean diaper, positioned it between her mother’s thin legs, then fastened the plastic tabs. Her mother continued to hold her hem at her waist until Lisa tugged on her hands and pried the fabric free.
“Okay.” She wrapped her hand around her mother’s narrow wrist. “Let’s go back to your couch.”
“I have to go to the bathroom.”
“You just did.”
“Oh.” Her mother’s countenance fell. “I’m hungry.”
“Your lunch will be here in a minute.”
“I’m hungry now.”
“I’ll fix you something. But first you have to go back to the couch, because I can’t leave you standing where you might fall and break something.”
Bowing her head, her mother shuffled forward, following Lisa down the hallway and into the living room. Once her mother had lowered herself back to the sofa, Lisa tucked a crocheted afghan over her bony knees.
Her hand closed around Lisa’s wrist. “I’m hungry.”
Something in the plaintive wail woke Lisa’s father. “Huh? Is it time to walk the dog?”
Lisa tugged her hand free and resisted the urge to clap her hands over her ears. “We don’t have a dog, Dad.”
She walked into the kitchen, pulled two plastic bowls from the cupboard, and reached for the Cheerios in the pantry. After splashing a scattering of cereal into each bowl, she carried them into the living room and set each on a TV tray.
“Here.” Her voice was harsher than she intended. “Eat a snack.”
Her mother’s lower lip quivered. “Where’s the milk?”
“No milk, not in the living room. You’ll spill it.”
“Can I have a spoon?”
“You’ll drop it, Mother, and I can’t wait around to pick it up for you. You’ll have to eat these with your fingers.”
Her father gingerly lowered his thumb and forefinger into the bowl, then tipped his head back and dropped an O into his mouth. Lisa closed her eyes and breathed a silent prayer of gratitude for whoever invented Cheerios, favorite food of toddlers and elders.
Grateful that at least one of her parents was content, she headed back to her day-care room and to the smells of paper and schoolhouse paste.
“Leeee-saaaaa?”
She closed the door and fastened the latch.
Manhattan
When Karyn entered the kitchen, Sarah stood in front of the refrigerator, one hand on the open door, the other propped on the handle of the freezer. She stared at the inner shelves as if she expected the containers inside to jump up and make themselves into dinner.
Karyn tapped her daughter’s shoulder. “Air-conditioning is less expensive than refrigerating the apartment, you know.”
Sarah blinked, then closed the door. “There’s nothing to eat. Can we order a pizza?”
Karyn blew out a breath. “No way. I have to lose five pounds, and I can’t do it if there’s pizza in the house. Grab some of that lettuce and make yourself a salad.”
Sarah’s face crumpled with disappointment. “That’s not fair! I’m not on a diet. Why can’t I order a pizza and eat it in my room?”
“Because I’ll smell it, that’s why. And I’ll track it down and eat a bite, then I’ll eat two bites, and then four. Before you know it, half the pizza will be gone, and I’ll be heavier than I am now.”
Sarah pushed her bottom lip forward. “Why do you need to lose weight?”
“Because.” Karyn eased onto a stool at the counter. “I’m up for a major part in a new prime-time sitcom. And because my character is younger, I have to lose a few pounds.” She shrugged. “I guess I look too maternal or something.”
For a brief moment Sarah’s face seemed to open, and Karyn watched her words take hold. She saw excitement and a brief flicker of wonder, then her daughter’s expression settled into a look of studied unconcern. “That’s cool, I guess. Does this mean I can get a new iPod?”
“Tell you what.” Karyn held out her hand. “You help me lose five pounds, and I’ll get you whatever electronic gadget you want.”
“Anything?”
“Anything—but you’re going to have to help me in other ways too. You’ll have to be quiet when I’m studying lines, and you might have to stay here by yourself a few evenings. You’ll have to keep your schoolwork up so I don’t have to nag you about finishing your homework. I don’t want to be distracted.”
“How long do I have to do this?”
“About three weeks.”
One of Sarah’s brows lifted. “What about the boyfriend? What if he comes over and bothers you?”
“Henry won’t be coming over. This new role is more important.”
“I could even get a sound system for my room?”
Karyn nodded. “But the deal goes through only if I get the part.”
Sarah considered a moment, then slowly swiped her hand across Karyn’s. “Deal.”
Houston
Susan Brantley Dodson lifted her teacup and smiled over the gold rim, hoping the dreadful fabric swatch in her client’s hand was a mistake.
“Of course, Chet really hates
this
,” Margie Winston said, smoothing the horrid plaid over her skirt, “but I thought it would be perfect for the den even though it is a little pricey. My momma always said I had champagne taste on a beer budget. But even though we’ve come into a little money, I can’t seem to let go of my tendency to pinch a penny every now and again.”
Susan’s teacup clattered against the porcelain saucer. No matter what the budget, Margie had Kmart taste that not even an alliance with Martha Stewart could improve.
“Really.” Susan widened her eyes in feigned astonishment. “Do you think you’d be happy with something so masculine? After all, you’ll be spending time in the den too.”
“Not often,” Margie insisted. “It’ll be a room for the boys—Chet, Ned, and Beau. I was thinking of doing the sofa in this plaid and maybe putting some kind of red leatherette on the walls.”
Susan repressed a shudder. “How about a rich cranberry leather for the sofa and a subdued plaster finish for the walls? I’ve pulled some pictures of rooms you might like.”
Margie’s fabric samples fell to the floor as she leaned forward to look at the portfolio Susan opened on the coffee table. As her new client oohed and aahed over the pictures, Susan leaned against the sofa pillows and struggled to remember why she had agreed to take this garrulous woman as a client.
Of course—the Winstons were building on the lot next to Gloria Bennett’s house, and Gloria insisted that every home in the Pelican Island development exhibit a certain level of sophistication. Gloria might never have known the Winstons sprang from new money and the lower middle class, but she’d been meditating in the builder’s design center the day Margie had her first meeting with the development’s decorator.
At that moment, Gloria later told Susan, she had known only Susan Brantley Dodson could save Margie Winston from unforgivable mediocrity. “She ignored everything the decorator suggested,” Gloria said. “She wanted to paint the house dark green. Can you imagine? With bright red shutters.” She rolled her eyes. “She wanted it to look like Christmas year-round.”
Susan recoiled. “You want me to work with someone like
that
?”
Gloria’s eyes narrowed. “I could beg.”
“Beg away; I won’t do it.”
“In the mood for a bribe?”
“I wouldn’t take on a woman like that for all of Liz Taylor’s diamonds.”
“Then I’ll resort to threats.”
“Such as?”
“Susan Dodson, you’ll take this woman as a client, or I’ll . . . I’ll . . .”
“You’ll what?”
“I’ll never speak to you again!”
Susan had tilted her head and smiled, pretending Gloria’s threats were only a joke, but she knew better. Gloria Bennett could carry a grudge longer than the eternal God, and one thing Susan did not have was a wealth of friends.
Now Margie had her fingertips on a photograph of Susan at the Bennetts’ house, an elegant Victorian. The shot displayed the living room in full holiday regalia, with Susan standing in front of the family’s Christmas tree.
“Oh!” Margie’s face softened. “What a beautiful picture.”
Susan forced a smile. “Thank you. The Bennetts have a lovely home.”
“No, really.” Margie looked up, her brown eyes boring into Susan’s. “I’m sure you hear it all the time, Susie, but you are a beautiful woman.”
Susan curved her lips over teeth that clenched at the nickname. “You’re very kind.”
“Pretty is as pretty does; that’s what my momma used to say.” Margie absently fluffed her brown hair, which was long, full, and twenty years out of style. “I can tell you must be a kind woman yourself. When Gloria Bennett told me you’d be willing to help me decorate my house, I couldn’t believe a woman of your ability would agree to take the job at cost.”
Susan pressed her hands together. “I enjoy decorating, and I don’t need to work. My late husband provided more than enough to keep me comfortable.”