Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen Page 7

  I had always liked Mrs. Gulbenk, despite her obsession with the tomato, until this very moment. I appreciated her teaching me to sew a button on a jacket and how to properly season a new cast-iron skillet. I never really figured either one was going to be particularly important to my personal survival, but somehow I just felt a little more womanly knowing how. But sitting in the third row behind Ruthie Morgan's ponytail, I suddenly hated her and this broadening notion of hers and Mother's Day and everything else that made me remember that I was the only girl in my entire class who didn't have a living and breathing mama. Besides, nobody with any sense drinks hot tea in May.

  With all that hate swarming through my body, I barely heard Mrs. Gulbenk calling my name, “Catherine Grace, child, are ya in there?”

  And in her well-intended effort to ease my discomfort, she only made it worse. “Catherine Grace, I'm gonna need one gul to help me pour the tea. It is a big responsibility, and I need someone with a mature demeana and a steady hand. I was wonderin’ if you'd help? Of course, you should know, you won't be able to spend much time socializin’ with the otha guls.”

  The other girls in Mrs. Gulbenk's tenth-grade home economics class instantly turned to look at me with their sappy, sympathetic stares, letting me know that they had already deciphered what she was trying to say in polite code. Catherine Grace, since you don't have a mother, I have a very special job for you. That ought to make it all better, right dear? That ought to make that dull, aching pain you've gotten used to feeling in your heart soften a bit, right?

  Lolly Dempsey was sitting next to me. She looked me in the eyes and mouthed two words, “I'm sorry.”

  “Me, too,” I mouthed back.

  I don't remember much more of that day except Mrs. Gulbenk's persistent rambling ringing in my ears. She kept talking in an unusually high, giddy tone that plainly revealed her excitement about her newly invented Mother-Daughter Tea. But every word fell into the next, and from the second seat in the third row, it all sounded like a lot of noise about nothing.

  Lolly followed me out of the classroom as if to provide some sort of human shield between me and the other girls, you know, the girls with mothers. Lolly definitely had a mother, but mostly I think she wished she didn't. Her mama was almost fifty when Lolly was born. Mrs. Dempsey told me once that she was done taking care of babies when she got the news she was going to have another. It seemed like a mighty strange thing to be sharing with a child, but Lolly said her mama reminded her almost every day that she had been the product of a night of drunken thoughtlessness.

  Lolly wasn't allowed to have many friends over to her house. Her mama said it was too much work, and taking care of Lolly was already work enough. She'd let me come now and again, but only because I was the preacher's daughter. You don't want the preacher thinking unkindly of you even if you don't attend church on a regular basis.

  But I never cared to spend much time at the Dempseys' house. I didn't like the hateful way Lolly's mama talked to her. Sometimes I wasn't so sure if Mrs. Dempsey really knew how ugly she sounded. I think it had just become another one of her awful habits, kind of like those Virginia Slims she was always sticking between her lips. She would draw the smoke deep into her chest and just let it set there for a minute before blowing it out through her nose, sometimes right in Lolly's face. It was as if her mama blamed Lolly for simply being, and poor Lolly Dempsey knew from the very beginning what I had learned only at six—life's not fair.

  Standing in front of our gray metal lockers, Lolly and I griped about Mrs. Gulbenk's new class assignment, trying to comfort each other by joking about how stupid a tea sounded and how making a quart of tomato aspic would be ten times better than this. We imitated Ruthie Morgan throwing her arm in the air and offering her mother up as some sort of statewide, recognized tea expert.

  “Hey, you can bring my mom, Catherine Grace. I'm sure she'd rather go with you anyway,” Lolly said with a look in her eyes that told me she wasn't kidding anymore.

  “Thanks, but I'll be Mrs. Gulbenk's trusted little helper, the girl with the steady hand,” I said, thinking as I looked back in Lolly's eyes, maybe it was better not having a mama than to have one who doesn't want you.

  “Catherine Grace, seriously, I've got an idea. Why don't you bring Gloria Jean? You know she'd love to come. All you have to do is ask, and she'll be picking out the perfect shade of nail polish just for the occasion.”

  She was right. Gloria Jean would be thrilled to be my mother, even if it was only for one afternoon. She'd never had any children of her own, although she said she had come close once or twice. She said she had an angry uterus that just never took to growing a baby. But she loved every opportunity to dote on Martha Ann and me, even calling us the children she always dreamed of having.

  Lolly was also right about the nail polish. But I already knew the shade she'd pick. Cherry Blossom Pink. Gloria Jean always said that Cherry Blossom Pink was just the right shade for bridal showers and ladies' luncheons, and I figured a tea fell somewhere between the two.

  Most people in Ringgold didn't appreciate Gloria Jean's colorful sense of style. Gloria Jean called herself a liberated, modern woman who wasn't afraid to express her inner self. I knew that was talk she had picked up from one of those ladies' magazines she was always reading, and I also knew that the other women in town had less-flattering names for her.

  When I was no more than seven or eight, Gloria Jean would take me to town while she did her weekly shopping. Everybody we passed on the sidewalk acted real friendly to her face. But I could tell that when she walked away, they were passing judgments. They'd lean into one another and whisper in each other's ears. I eventually figured out what they were saying. They thought her blue eye shadow was tacky and her red, silky blouse that pulled too tightly across her chest was whoreish. I knew they were wrong, and I tried to tell them by casting a scolding, evil stare in their direction. But they never paid any attention to a little girl.

  I used to feel so hurt for Gloria Jean, even though she never seemed to notice. But as I got older, sometimes I found myself feeling more embarrassed than hurt. And then that left me feeling guilty and shallow. I just wasn't sure what to think anymore. One minute I'd be crying, the next I'd be laughing. Gloria Jean said it was nothing but horrormones, as she liked to call them, running wild throughout my body. But I wasn't so convinced that I could blame the way I was feeling on something I had never seen or heard of before.

  But I did know one thing for certain, I wasn't feeling up to drawing any more attention to myself; being the only motherless child in class was bad enough without having to listen to all the talk about my special, colorful friend. No, I would just pour the tea and make myself feel better by spitting in Ruthie Morgan's cup.

  For the next two weeks, Mrs. Gulbenk talked on and on about tea and tea parties. She said some English duchess back in the nineteenth century came up with the idea of serving tea in the afternoon so she could make it to dinner without fainting from hunger. We learned to make these tiny cucumber sandwiches, which were nothing more than two little round pieces of white bread with a slice of cucumber and some cream cheese between them. I didn't know about that English duchess, but even I knew it was going to take more than a piece of cucumber to quiet a growling stomach.

  Mrs. Gulbenk insisted on serving her special tea. She said she found the recipe in the back of a Good Housekeeping magazine and that we should file this one away in our personal recipe boxes that we decoupaged last semester. She even wrote the mixture on the board so we could copy it onto one of those white index cards she kept stacked on the corner of her desk for us to use for jotting down a good recipe whenever one came our way.

  1/2 cup Lipton Instant Tea

  1 large jar of Tang Drink Mix

  1 cup sugar

  1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

  1/2 tablespoon ground cloves

  Add water to taste. Heat. Serve hot.

  That was it. Her special tea. And since I was her spec
ial helper, I was the one entrusted with the responsibility of mixing the tea together in the school cafeteria. Mrs. Gulbenk insisted I make a batch a whole week before the party and then practice serving it to the class. I told her I didn't think that was necessary seeing how there were only six ingredients and one of them was water and I had been pouring iced tea into jelly jar glasses since I was no more than four years old.

  “Catherine Grace, a good hostess always prepares new dishes for herself first, even tea, before serving it to her guests.”

  In that case, I asked if Lolly could help, pointing out that I might need an extra hand carrying the tea back to the classroom. Mrs. Gulbenk thought that was a smart idea, and Lolly and I were both relieved to get out of the room where all the other girls were giggling with excitement as they practiced decorating trays with miniature cakes and sandwiches and sprigs of parsley.

  I had not mentioned this tea to anyone, not Daddy, not Gloria Jean, not even Martha Ann. I wanted to warn my little sister that in two years, she was going to be Miss Gulbenk's special helper at this sure-to-be-annual-mother-daughter event. But I didn't want to burden her with it. She hated these things as much as I did. So I kept it to myself.

  Of course, what I wasn't expecting was for Miss Gulbenk to blab all about it to Gloria Jean. Other than just a polite hello, those two women have probably exchanged words a sum total of three times since the day I was born, and one of them was a week before the Mother-Daughter Tea.

  “Catherine Grace,” Gloria Jean announced one night when I had come over to watch That Girl on her new color television set. “I ran into Miss Gulbenk today at the post office. She told me all about the tea you girls are having at school, and she thought you might like it, sweetie, if I came, so you wouldn't be there without a mama and all. You know I'd love to. Just tell me when and where I need to be.”

  I mumbled something about needing to prepare the tea and how I'd be busy in the kitchen and not wanting to leave her sitting in the classroom with all those other mothers. “Really,” I said, “I wouldn't want to bother you. I mean, you'd probably be bored stiff seeing how I'm Mrs. Gulbenk's special helper and all.” I sat there listening to myself lying all the while acting as though I was only doing what was best for Gloria Jean.

  Surely I had wounded her, too, just like I had Miss Raines, except that Gloria Jean was the closest thing I was ever going to have to a mama. And I just sat there on her soft velvet sofa staring at her television and stomping on her heart all at the same time. But she just smiled.

  “Sure, honey. I understand. It does sound like you are gonna be pretty busy.” She hugged me when I walked out the door, just like she always did. She even offered to let me borrow her brand-new bottle of Cherry Blossom Pink, the perfect shade, she thought, for a tea.

  I was rotten, and so on the day of the historic, first-ever Ringgold High Mother-Daughter Tea, I found myself standing in the school cafeteria with my arm submerged in Mrs. Gulbenk's special tea feeling sad and lonely even though Lolly was standing right there beside me. She asked me if I was missing my mama, and I told her I wasn't sure who I was missing.

  I sat like a perfect lady on the cushioned chair Miss Gulbenk had placed in front of the teapot. I even looked like a lady, wearing a green, cotton skirt and coordinating blouse with little pink and green flowers on it that Gloria Jean had specially bought for me at a store in Birmingham the week before, knowing good and well the other mamas had bought their daughters a special, new outfit just for the occasion. Gloria Jean said I needed to look better than everybody else seeing how I was serving the tea. It was the prettiest outfit in my closet.

  I greeted every girl, including Ruthie Morgan, with a sweet, sugary smile. And I said a quiet, “Thank you,” as every mama walked past me, gently patting me on the shoulder as if to let me know that they were so sorry that I was still a motherless child. They chatted among themselves and praised Mrs. Gulbenk endlessly for coming up with such a sophisticated idea in the first place. They all asked for the recipe for her special tea, and Mrs. Gulbenk promised to mimeograph copies and send them home with the girls.

  After all the mamas had sipped their tea and nibbled on their cucumber sandwiches, they left. And as we all scurried about the room, cleaning up crumbs and paper napkins, Mrs. Gulbenk announced that the Mother-Daughter Tea had been such a wonderful success, she would surely be making it an annual event. Poor Martha Ann.

  She told us that everything was beautiful and delicious and that we would all be gracious hostesses one day, and we should all go home feeling proud of our accomplishment. But I walked home feeling downright rotten. I might as well have come straight out and told Gloria Jean I was embarrassed to be seen with her. But it seemed no matter what I said or didn't say, she just kept on loving me as much as she ever had.

  She baked her famous chocolate chip cookies the day before the tea in case Mrs. Gulbenk needed extra. She even bought me a little silver charm that looked like a teapot to add to my charm bracelet because, she said, I needed to make a little noise when I tipped the pot. And she told me every single time I walked out of her front door that she loved me, whether I deserved it or not.

  I guess I had been too afraid of being different, at least more than I already was. As much as I griped about everybody else's mama looking and acting so perfect, I figure that was what I really wanted, or thought I wanted. Funny thing, it took a silly cup of Mrs. Gulbenk's special tea for me to finally realize that being a perfect mama has nothing to do with the color of your lipstick or the way you wear your hair.

  I knew I needed to make things right with Gloria Jean. So I hurriedly changed my clothes, leaving my skirt and blouse on my bed and grabbing some jeans that were crumpled on the floor. I walked out of my room, not really knowing what to say or do. I thought maybe I should take something with me, a sort of peace offering, but I wasn't really sure what would be appropriate for such an occasion, maybe a jar of marshmallow whip and a box of Ritz crackers. I headed across the front yard to Gloria Jean's, and I could see the light from the television flickering through her living room window.

  “Gloria Jean, hey there, it's Catherine Grace,” I called from the kitchen door. “Are you in there?” She didn't answer, so I walked toward the back of the house and called her name out loud.

  “Hey there, honey,” she answered, her voice sounding muffled and distant. “Come on in. I'm back here in my bedroom.” When I walked in her room, I found her down on her knees with her head buried under her bed. She looked up when she heard me at the door. “What are you doing down there?” I asked, rather amazed to find Gloria Jean half buried under her mattresses like that.

  “Heck, I'm looking for some old photographs, under the bed. I keep my life story right here so I can grab it in case I need to get out quick,” Gloria Jean explained.

  “Oh.”

  “I read it in Better Homes and Gardens years ago,” she continued.

  “Read what?” I asked, not knowing what she was talking about.

  “I read that you should store your photos under the bed, in one place, for safekeeping.” And without hesitating, Gloria Jean kept on talking, “So tell me, hon, how was the tea? Did you get everything mixed up all right?”

  “Yeah,” I said, not the least bit surprised that she was asking about my day. “I managed to smile at everybody, even Ruthie Morgan. But, uh . . .” I was having a hard time coming up with the right thing to say. On the walk over, I had begged the Lord to give me the words and now I was waiting for Him to put them in my mouth. It was helpful that her head was under the bed, where I couldn't see her eyes. I thanked the Lord for that.

  “It was . . . it, well . . . it was just that I wasn't very happy, Gloria Jean, and it had nothing to do with not liking tea. And it had nothing to do with not having my mama there.”

  “Oh,” she said, pulling her head out from under her bed, holding a photograph of a girl in her hands. “Sweetie, I understand. I really do.” And I knew she did.

  “I know
you're feeling all sorts of mixed-up things these days. It's part of figuring out who you really are. And I think mamas are important when it comes time to doing all that figuring. It's a hard job on your own. Know what I'm saying?” she asked, handing me the photograph in her hands. The girl looked familiar, but I didn't know her name.

  “That's your mama, Catherine Grace. Lord, honey, she wasn't much older than you when that picture was taken.” I had never seen my mama like this, leaning against the oak tree in the backyard wearing nothing but a bathing suit top and a pair of shorts. I mean she looked so young. I guess you never think of your own mama being a little girl.

  “She had just found out she was going to have you when I snapped that picture. Mmm. Mmm. What a pretty thing she was.” I looked even closer as if I was going to find some kind of explanation on this piece of Kodak paper. I mean, I knew my mama was only seventeen when I was born, but I always figured she looked older than this. You know, like the other mamas. I couldn't quit staring at the little girl in the picture.

  “Listen,” Gloria Jean said, drawing my attention back to her, “some girls don't have the courage to be who they are truly meant to be. But you and me and your mama, we're just braver than most other folks, and don't you forget it. Now, why don't you open that marshmallow whip, and we'll see if we can't make this day a little bit better.”

  I never looked at Gloria Jean the same way again. Her brilliant, blue eyelids and her bold, red lips never looked more beautiful. In that moment, I knew I was brave and that I was destined to be a modern, colorful woman just like Gloria Jean Graves.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Waiting for My Moses Moment with Joseph Riding Shotgun

  Daddy gave me my first set of luggage on my sixteenth birthday. He had all three pieces, which were the prettiest shade of baby blue I'd ever seen, propped up against the fireplace just like it was Christmas morning. A tag sewn inside one of them said they were made of 100 percent plastic vinyl, but they were streaked and veined to look like real leather. And I loved them. They were so beautiful sitting there, waiting for some unknown adventure.