Honey, Baby, Sweetheart (31 page)

“Ooh, that got me.”

“Okay, enough,” my mother said. She held up both hands as if she’d just been arrested. Rings of sweat were starting to form under her arms. We waited in
tense silence. Moments passed. More moments.

“Car!” Miz June called.

A convertible, no less. Woman driving, the man next to her. Money. Cell phone jackpot. They probably had two.

We waved and called. Both waved back heartily and drove on.

“I can’t believe it,” my mother said.

“What did they think, we were the greeting committee?” Peach said.

Harold put on a blank expression. He imitated the moronic wave of the convertible drivers to imaginary passing cars.

“Oh, despair,” Miz June said.

We waited for a long time. Peach and Mom finally got Lillian out of the car. It seemed like forever, to the point where everything you can’t have—bathroom, food—suddenly begins to nag you with immediate need. I wished I’d gone back at the scenic lookout. The ocean roared in and out. The rocks sat patient, as they’d done forever. The road was still as a painting.

“If anyone tells Mrs. Wilson-now-Mrs. Thrumond this part, they’re dead,” Peach said.

“I’m thirsty,” Chip Jr. whispered to me.

“Drink your spit,” I said.

But I was thirsty too, and tired of looking at that dotted white line and imagining cars that weren’t there. Where had everyone gone, anyway? Where was the couple in the windbreakers? Captain Ed? The people in the cars parked at every rest stop? The trucks full of farm workers?

“This isn’t going to work,” my mother said. “We could be here forever. Maybe I should start walking.”

“I wish someone would call me a cab,” Peach said.

“You’re a cab,” Harold said. He chuckled. At least someone still had a sense of humor.

Mom put her palms to her eyes. When she removed them, she gasped. “Motor home.” She breathed. “Oh, my God, motor home!”

I looked. She was right. A huge motor home, with big wide windows and an ambling, overweight gait, a fat guy hurrying down an empty hall. Not Captain Ed, but someone else, the biggest motor home I’d ever seen, with two green stripes zipping boldly down the sides. My mother waved, a two-arm wave of desperation. Harold stood in the middle of the road, a heroic but unnecessary gesture, as the motor home swayed to a stop a few paces behind us. Then came the friendly slam of the driver’s door, an unbelievably cheerful sound. Miz June clasped her hands together. Peach jumped up and down a bit with excitement, like she’d just won the washer-dryer combo on a game show.

“Hi, folks,” the man said. He looked like the kind of guy who would say
hi, folks
—small and round with gray hair making a half circle on his head. He had a generous nose, belly slung over his pants, a big silver belt buckle with a deer on it trying to breathe under there. His shirt read
PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN,
and featured a bald eagle with the same haircut as his own.

“Thank goodness you stopped,” my mother said. “We ran out of gas.”

“Well, that’s not the smartest thing you ever did,” the man said, and was instantly forgiven, I’m sure, by all of us. If that camper had a bathroom, he could rip us apart like a vulture if he wanted. “Frank,” he said, and held out his hand. That was certainly true.

“Ann McQueen,” my mother said. She introduced everyone.

The door of the camper opened and a woman stuck her head out. She had short hair Clairol-ed orange and big warm eyes and a motherly body. Well, nothing like my mother’s slim curves, but how you picture other mothers—shoulders and chest as round and squishy as bread loaves. She wore the same shirt with the eagle, not tucked in, though, but smoothed over her jeans as flat as her bumpy terrain would allow.

“You can come out now, Marjorie,” Frank said.

“Frank was making sure you weren’t rapists,” she said.

“Just fools who ran out of gas,” Frank said.

My mother eyed Peach to make sure she’d keep her mouth shut, and then tried to get a peek inside the camper. She was thinking the same thing I was about the camper bathroom.

“Silly us,” Miz June said. She was trying to peek in there too.

“I don’t have a gas can, but I got myself one of those phones. Where you folks headed?”

“Carmel,” my mother said.

“What brings you folks that way? Washington plates.” Frank was a regular FBI agent.

“We’re bringing Lillian here to live with an old friend of hers.” Lillian smiled.

“How sweet,” Marjorie said.

“Get me that cell phone, Marjorie.”

Marjorie disappeared. “Where in Washington you from?” Frank asked.

“Nine Mile Falls. Just east of Seattle,” Harold said.

“Woodburn, ourselves. Oregon. We’re retired. Traveling the country. Best way to see the sights, right here. We got everything we need. Wife’s got her sewing machine in there. VCR. Every Demi Moore movie.” Frank winked at Harold. “Wife brought the china. The girls grew up and we always said we’d sell the house and just go. Well, the wife couldn’t sell the house, of course. You shoulda seen the waterworks on
that.
So I figure, what the hell. You only live once.”

Sometimes, I’ve discovered, people only ask a question so that they can answer it themselves.

“Met some helluva fine people on the way. Helluva fine people. Everywhere around the world. You wanna meet people, this is the way to go.” He slapped the side of the RV. He remembered his poor belt buckle, gasping for air, and hitched it around a little.

“I can’t find it, Frank.” A small voice from inside the camper.

“Under the seat,” he shouted. “Move the atlas.”

“Atlas?” she said.

“Under the seat,” he yelled.

“We met people from as far away as Japan,” he said.
“Mooshie mooshie.” He put one hand up. “That means hello.”

“How about that,” my mother said. She had practice at dealing with the public from being a librarian.

“You’d think one mooshie would do,” Peach said.

Frank laughed. He shook his head. “Isn’t that right. One mooshie would do.” He would use that line on the next stranded motorist, I was sure.

“Found it!” Marjorie said. “Thank goodness it has enough batteries.”

“Don’t push anything. Last time you pushed something you erased all my messages.”

“One message. I erased one.”

“Hand it to me. This baby’s got everything you need. I can see what time a movie starts in Idaho.” I knew personally that there were many times in my life when I wondered what time a movie started in Idaho.

“It was a wrong number, anyway,” Marjorie said. “Someone calling to tell us that our lawn mower repair was completed. No charge.”

“Mooshie mooshie.” Chip Jr. made kissy noises my way. I whacked him.

“Check this out. Name a city.”

“Carmel,” my mother said. She was doing her best to keep him on track.

“Carmel, okay.” He looked at his phone. “Eighty-two degrees and sunny.”

“Just like here,” Peach said. “What a coincidence, since we’re an hour away.”

Mom shot her a look. “I’m thinking the best person to call would be the friend we’re meeting. I’ve got his number.”

“Okinawa. Fifty-eight and cloudy.”

“Let them use the phone, Frank,” Marjorie said.

“Push this here. See? You’re set to go.”

“Thanks.” Mom walked off a ways on her own and after a moment, thankfully seemed to be talking to someone. She plugged her free ear with one finger to hear better, had her head down.

“And how old are you two?” Marjorie said to Chip Jr. and me. I told her. “I have grandchildren,” she said, as if that meant we had something in common. “Justine is thirteen. David is eleven. Let me show you the pictures.” She disappeared inside the camper again, ducking her head even though there was plenty of room for her. Frank was telling everyone about the time he accidentally left Marjorie behind at some rest stop by the Little Bighorn Battlefield in Montana. He went twenty miles before he realized she wasn’t there. After he picked her back up, he had to take her to the gift shop and buy her a Bighorn Canyon book bag and refrigerator magnet before she stopped being mad. Mom was nodding her head and pacing. She looked stressed. It was like watching the news with the sound off. Finally Mom approached Lillian, spoke to her softly, then held the phone to her ear.

“Here they are,” Marjorie said. “This was from our family trip to Santa’s Village last summer. This is Justine,
and this is David.” She tapped the photo with her finger.

Thank goodness she pointed out which was which, since one was a boy and the other a girl. “They look very nice,” I said. Two kids in shorts and tank tops stood next to a huge polka-dotted mushroom and smiled painfully.

“Why that Denise let David pierce his ear is another thing,” Marjorie said. I looked closer, saw the gold stud in the boy’s ear.

“Making him into a pansy,” Frank said. “Looks like a fruitcake.”

Lillian nodded into the phone, and Mom took it back.

“We got unlimited minutes, so don’t you worry,” Frank said. “We’re all about giving.”

“Whatever you give comes back to you twofold,” Marjorie said. “Give someone a smile and they’ll give you a hug.”

“Gag,” Chip Jr. whispered.

“Was that a yes?” Mom asked Lillian. Lillian nodded again. “Okay,” Mom said. “It’s a plan.”

“We just love Christmas,” Marjorie said. She’d lost me somewhere on the conversation trail until I realized she was looking at the picture of Santa’s Village.

“We used to start decorating the house on November first, every year,” Frank said. “Full train set. Inflatable Santa with sled and reindeer on the roof. So many damn lights that when the dog chewed through the power cord he was thrown across the room.”

“That was before we got the Winnebago and became
vagabonds,” Marjorie said. “‘Bagobonds,’” I call us.”

“You could make a sweatshirt. ‘Bagobonds,’ in puff paint,” Peach said. I shot her a warning look, since Mom was off duty.

“That’s what I thought. Hear that, Frank? I said the same thing.”

“Thank you,” my mother said to Frank and handed the phone back to him. “Well, gang,” she said to us. “Charles will be arriving as soon as he can. And when he arrives, we’ll be having a wedding.”

“A wedding!” Marjorie said.

“Here?” I said.

“What’s the hurry—is the bride pregnant?” Frank chortled, while that innocent deer on the belt buckle was pummeled rhythmically with flab.

“Delores and Nadine were quicker than we thought,” Mom said. “They’re staying in a motel in Carmel and claim to have a court order that puts Lillian in their care. She meets the requirements for incompetence, and they have several people saying so. Unless Charles is her legal spouse, Lillian will be going back to the Golden Years. They wanted to marry anyway. It’ll just be a little sooner than we expected. Charles is bringing a minister who lives down the street. It’s got to happen now.”

“We were hoping to get to the Steinbeck Festival in Monterrey,” Marjorie said. “But I don’t want to miss a wedding. This would be perfect for the Bagabond Newsletter.”

“I love that
Heart of Darkness.
Steinbeck’s a genius,” Frank said.

“Joseph Conrad,” my mother said.
“Heart of Darkness
is by Joseph Conrad.”

“I’m sure it’s Steinbeck,” Frank said. “I remember it from high school.”

“She’s a librarian,” Harold said.

“Joseph Conrad? Didn’t he sing ‘It’s Only Make Believe’?” Marjorie said.

“That’s Conway Twitty,” Miz June said.

“Never heard of Joseph Conrad,” Frank said.

“Well, if it’s not John Steinbeck, we might as well stay for the wedding,” Marjorie said. “Frank, a
wedding.”

“Oh, all right,” Frank said.

“Do you all want a drink of something while we wait? Fresca? Perhaps you all need to use the ladies and gentleman’s room?”

Finally.

While we waited for Charles, Marjorie took us inside the Winnebago and showed us her Forever Christmas collection, little glass snowy houses and groups of glass carolers with earmuffs or top hats, and glass children kneeling under glass Christmas trees. The statues were stuck to every flat surface with duct tape so that they wouldn’t slide around during those tight curves. She showed us the Christmas outfits she was making for Justine and David—red plaid dress with green bric-a-brac trim for Justine, green plaid vest with red bric-a-brac trim for David. I wasn’t sure who to hurt for—well-intentioned
grandmother, embarrassed grandchildren, or the store that still sold bric-a-brac.