“One must at all times,” Dallas said to me, “be dressed to kill. And that includes your hair. What are we doing for this event, Jim?”
I took a look at myself in the mirror. Thank God I was born a redhead. Even at fifty-one I could hide the gray without coloring my hair and exposing me to all those derisive “look at that old queen” jousts. The beard would have to go, of course. My family wouldn’t like it, and my father’s friends would look askance.
“Something conservative, something proper. My parents were Episcopalians and Republicans, after all.”
“Got it,” Dallas said and rolled his eyes. “Know what you mean. I was from Dubuque, and when my father –“
“Sorry to interrupt, but what time is it getting to be? I need to be on the road before noon.”
“Don’t be so impatient. Didn’t the mani-pedi do anything for you?”
“Oh, all right. But Atlanta is seven hundred miles and I’d like to get there before midnight.”
“Never you fear, Dallas is here.”
I knew I could count on Dallas. Unlike my soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend, who refused my request to babysit the pets so I could make this trip. Couldn’t believe it when Mike said a resounding no when I asked him. Never mind that he’d been the one to poke and prod me into getting a parrot and two cats in addition to my dog Chester the Lunatic. And then when I bitched at him about stepping up to the plate under these circumstances – who wouldn’t? – he turned around and yelled at me. And at such a time!
“So what’s new with you, Jim?” Dallas asked. I could tell by his squiggly eyebrows he noticed I was a million miles away. But he didn’t know what Mike had done. No one did.
“Oh, I’ve just been so preoccupied by my father. It’s a relief, really, after all these years. And he didn’t have to endure the final stage of Alzheimer’s. Pneumonia took him first.”
Seven hours later I crossed the border into Georgia. Thank heaves I was leaving the orange state. Why’d they call it that? No particular reason they should insult the orange, that armpit of a state I’d lived in off-and-on-again for nearly a score of years. I hated Florida. No, I hate Florida. Those men with their toupes and flashy Jaguars and the women with their basketball tits and black clothes and Botox foreheads and Barbara Hershey lips. I’d rather have the pasty-white Georgia rednecks ...
I’d see my mother in just four hours. Poor thing, who’d have ever thought she’d survive Dad? No one did, not after that humungous stroke. Four years ago. She’d survived a stroke only ten percent ever survived longer than a month – and here we were, four years later, Mom about to bury the husband who’d been perfectly healthy when her brain went “Pop, goes the weasel.” Who’d have ever thought a woman could be such a survivor, such a strong woman?
But of course, this was the woman who gave birth to me. Now if that didn’t make for a strong woman, nothing did.
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