When we got back to the guest room, Martine grabbed a broom while I consulted Mrs. Cartwright’s list. “ ‘Move night-stand in from room across hall,’ ” I read aloud.
“I already did that.”
I stepped aside to let Martine sweep where I’d been standing. She was raising a little dust cloud — too enthusiastic with her broom. Wiry tendons flickered beneath the skin of her forearms. Really her skin was more olive-colored than yellow; or maybe that was a trick of the light. I glanced back down at Mrs. Cartwright’s list. “Did you turn the mattress too?” I asked.
“Not yet,” she said, “because I wasn’t sure what that meant. Turn it? Turn it how?”
“Flip it to its other side,” I told her. “Haven’t you ever done that? It’s usually part of spring cleaning.”
“It isn’t part of my spring cleaning. I’ve never turned a mattress in my life. Do you turn yours?”
“No, but I’ve done it lots of times for clients,” I said.
Then — I don’t know why — I started feeling embarrassed. It was something about the word “mattress.” I almost wondered, for a second, if that was one of those words you shouldn’t say in mixed company. (These notions hit me every so often.) I hurried on. I said, “Especially back when Mrs. Beeton was alive. About once a month, I swear, her kids would be phoning up: ‘Help! Get on over to Mama’s! Mama’s talking again about turning her …”’
Maybe I should call it a pallet. Was that too much of a euphemism? Fortunately, Martine didn’t seem to be listening. She had propped her broom in a corner, and she was moving toward the other side of the bed. “In fact,” I told her, “that happens to be how Rent-a-Back began. I bet you didn’t know that. Mrs. Dibble’s mother was turning hers one day, and it got away from her. When Mrs. Dibble came to check on her that evening, she found her flat as a pancake underneath it.”
Martine’s eyes widened. “Dead?” she asked.
“No, no; just mad. Mrs. Dibble said, ‘You should have hired a man to do that,’ and her mother said, ‘I can’t hire a man just to turn one … mattress!’ and Mrs. Dibble said, ‘Well, I fail to see why not.’ And she went home and dreamed up Rent-a-Back.”
“Grab an edge, will you?” Martine asked me.
I did, finally I heaved my side of the mattress upward and came over to the other side to help Martine support it. We were standing so close that I could hear the clink of one overall clasp when she drew in her breath. I could feel that concentrated, fierce heat she always gave off; I could smell her smell of clean sweat.
She said, “How do you get your mouth to curl up at the corners that way?”
“Practice,” I said. And then, “Whoa! Look at the time.” (Although there wasn’t a clock to be seen.) “I promised to meet Sophia for lunch,” I said. “We’d better hustle.”
Martine let her end of the mattress drop. For a moment I had all the weight of it before I let mine drop too.
In the truck, she started a fight. It wasn’t me who started it. She claimed that I had promised to drive her to her brother’s. Her brother’s wife had had a new baby. But I had promised no such thing; this was the first I’d heard of it. “How could she have a new baby?” I asked. “I seem to recollect she was pregnant just a while ago.”
“She was pregnant just a while ago. And now she’s had her baby.”
“See?” I said. “This is why I should have got a car of my own. Something used, I could have bought, with the rest of my Sting Ray money. Instead I’m having to split this dratted truck.”
“My heart bleeds for you,” Martine said.
“Besides, a truck’s a problem for old folks to climb into. It’s not appropriate! That high-up seat, and Everett’s silly fur dice—”
All at once, Martine reached over and swiped the dice off the mirror in one quick motion. Just snapped the string that held them, tossed the dice in the air, caught the two of them one-handed, and stuffed them into her jacket pocket.
“Satisfied?” she asked me.
“Well, hey,” I said.
“You think it’s easy for me, letting you keep the truck at your place? Begging you for a ride anytime I need to go somewhere? But I don’t have any choice! I don’t come from a fat-cat family! I can’t just waltz out and buy myself a car if I decide a truck’s not ‘appropriate’!”
“You don’t need to bite my head off,” I said.
We had reached her house by now, and I pulled over to the curb. But Martine stayed where she was, poking her sharp yellow face into mine. “I don’t know why I bother hanging out with you,” she said. “You’re sarcastic and moody and negative. You think just because you’re good-looking you can take up with any woman you want. You think you’re so understanding and sweet with those poor old-lady clients, but really you just … hit and run! You have no staying power! You couldn’t stick around even if you tried!”
I was astounded. I said, “Huh?” I said, “Where did all this come from?” And when she didn’t answer, I said, “You’re the one who fixed it so you’d have to rely on me for your rides.”
“Now, that is just exactly what I’m talking about,” she said. Making no sense whatsoever.
Then she jumped out of the truck and slammed the door hard behind her.
I took off, with a screech of my tires. I went on fuming aloud as if she were still there. “Maniac,” I said. “Lunatic.” I asked, “Didn’t I say all along this truck scheme would be a pain?”
Anyone who heard me would have thought I was demented.
13
“WE ARE PROBABLY the only family in America eating a potluck Thanksgiving dinner,” my mother said, gazing around the table.
“Oh, surely that can’t be true,” Gram said. “Good heavens! Many’s the time, in the old days, I was asked to bring my marshmallow-yam casserole when Aunt Mary had the dinner at her house.”
“That’s one kind of potluck, Mother. The organized kind, where the hostess assigns a dish to each guest. But I’m talking about the other kind: catch as catch can. Pot luck, with the emphasis on ‘luck.’ Who else would be doing this?”
Mom’s own dish was a redundancy; that’s why she was annoyed. She had made one of her famous pumpkin chiffon pies, which turned out to be what Wicky had made too. (Using Mom’s recipe. I could see how that might have been a faux pas.) Also, there was no turkey. At Jeff’s insistence, he and Wicky were hosting the dinner this year, and so everybody assumed that they would supply the turkey. But they hadn’t. Wicky said her oven was too small for a turkey that would feed ten people. It seemed all her efforts had gone instead into the decorations: twists of crepe paper in harvest gold and orange festooning the dining room, and an entire family of Pilgrims marching the length of the table, with lighted candlewicks sticking up out of their heads. Plus, at the start of the meal she had made us all join hands and sing “Come Ye Thankful People, Come.” Except that she and Sophia were the only ones who knew the words beyond the very first line.
Our menu was: two pumpkin chiffon pies, Gram’s marshmallow-yam casserole, Sophia’s Crock-Pot Applesauce Cake, and a salad that Opal had tossed with a vinaigrette dressing. This was nice for Opal, because we were all so glad to see something nonsweet that her contribution was the hit of the day.
Me, I’d chosen the easy way out and brought four bottles of wine. I guess I could have complained myself, since I had specifically purchased a wine designed to complement turkey. But hey. This way, I figured, I would probably get to carry a couple of bottles home with me.