|
Story No. 7 |
|
|
 |
 |
 "Within four hours, she had purchased the perfect green velvet evening gown..." |
"Frankly, my dear," she mused, "I'd rather
celebrate my birthday with Rhett Butler!"
By AUDREY YEAGER
of TheColumnists.com
Deep in thought and carrying a plastic bag of newly pulled weeds and a hand-trowel, Fran Haberman walked toward the gardening shed at the back of the property. She had been spending a lot of time in introspection lately and she knew exactly why. Her 40th birthday was about to overtake her like a tsunami.
In spite of the coming birthday, or, perhaps because of it, Fran’s thoughts seemed almost defensive. “I’m a darn lucky woman,” she insisted to no one in particular, setting the bag of weeds down by the trashcan, “I have Carl and the kids.”
Thinking of 16 year-old Tommy and 12 year-old Renee brought an unexpected lump to her throat. She suddenly imagined a future wave of goodbye to a college-bound Tommy as he stepped aboard a waiting jet. Then, she saw herself standing forlornly on the sidelines as a grown-up Renee left the church with a faceless groom.
The words came out in a long sigh, “Before too long my children will be gone.”
Realizing she had spoken out loud she gave her head a determined shake and shut the shed door behind her.
Sounds of the fading day pulled at Fran’s consciousness and she paused on her way to the house. The sun had long passed its zenith and was sliding down the far side of the white, two-storied colonial. A horse neighed. Someone whistled for a dog with three staccato shrills. The sprinkle whispered, “shhhh,shhhh,shhhh” and the chickens were clucking in their pen. The hen’s noises always made her think of dancing, clog-wearing Dutch girls.
A smile settled on her face as she remembered how her husband, Carl, teased her about those hens. He was right, too. The few eggs they produced didn’t justify what was paid out for feed. The smile widened as she recalled how many times Carl had laughingly said it wouldn’t be so bad if she would let him butcher one for Sunday dinner now and then. Perish the thought.
Nobody really understood how she felt about the hens. They represented a kind of permanence to her. There had been so many moves in the early years of their marriage. Finally, when Carl’s job allowed them to stay in one place, they had purchased the house. Within one week Fran had her chickens. Odd or not, they were her symbol of deepening roots in the rural community.
There was another side
to Fran’s personality that might also be called “odd.”
In the midst of raising the children, she found herself at times
dreaming dreams far removed
from reality. Diapers, dentists and disinfectants receded and
there she would be playing hostess to 20 or 30 antebellum Southerners
at a candlelit dinner. Her dress always resembled Scarlett O’Hara’s
green, velvet curtain-creation from "Gone With the Wind."
But, while gliding through a waltz with a Carl-like Rhett Butler,
she was always, sooner or later, jolted back to reality.
The setting for all of her daydreams was a long ago Southern plantation, and the fantasizing didn’t seem to do her any harm, but there was a time when she had slipped, not getting back to the present fast enough. Carl had informed her that they were going out for hamburgers with friends, and she had replied, “You will have to wear tails, of course.”
Carl was a wonder. Nothing she ever said--or did--threw him. His comment was, “The only tail you will find on me is the one hanging from my coonskin cap.”
What a kidder.
And here she was at it again, scrubbing her shoulder-length brown hair in the shower and trying to decide what to wear for dinner with the Cutlers this evening. Would it be the velvet with the long train, or the white, dotted swiss over a hoop skirt? Off she went, heading south toward Georgia and into a well-known dream world.
Carl Haberman’s wife may not have had the Blue Bird of Happiness perched on her window sill every day, but all in all, she wasn’t discontented with life. It was just lately these occasional moods came over her.
On the morning after the evening out with the Cutlers, the family was off for the day and Fran sat at the table drinking a second cup of coffee and thinking again about her coming birthday. She watched the slight, oily film on the brown liquid moving lazily as she tilted the cup from side to side and thought, “I suppose Carl will take me out to dinner or a movie, or both.”
She began to clear the table of the breakfast remains and continued her inner musings: It seems like there should be something a little more exciting to do on a person’s 40th birthday.
“Dear Carl," she told herself, "he never forgets only…only WHAT, you selfish woman? What do you expect? So your husband isn’t the most romantic man in the world, or an ultra sentimental goof ball like yourself. He shows his love in a hundred different ways.”
She wiped down the kitchen counters and reached for the half-completed grocery list.
Then an idea began to tiptoe around in her head, like a mouse wearing slippers. It wasn’t a clamoring, stomping, listen-to-me-now kind of thing, but it was nearing the point of actual competition with the list she was working on…toothpaste…peanut butter. Her interest in the list grew weaker. The idea mouse took off the slippers and the message turned into sentences.
I’ll have a Southern Plantation Night for my birthday! The kids will jump at the chance to spend the night with friends and it will be just Carl and I. Dinner, candles, flowers, and maybe I can find a CD of Stephen Foster music at the library. Oh, shoot! I think Stephen Foster’s songs have passed into the politically incorrect dead zone. Maybe Elvis will do, he was a Southerner. Of course, and I’ll do my hair in long ringlets and carry a fan.”
She was really rolling
now. Images of possible scenarios flashed through her brain.
“Oh, this is going to be a lot of fun. I’ll turn things
around on Carl and surprise HIM on MY birthday. I won’t
tell him a thing except that I would rather have a quiet dinner
at home.”
She decided not to tackle a typical Old South meal. Actually, she had no clue as to what that might be. Pork jowls, grits and cornpone came to mind but she felt that was a bit short of her goal. She settled on prime rib, Yorkshire pudding and broccoli with hollandaise sauce, with mint juleps to drink. Hesitating over the juleps for a minute, she recalled hearing a lot about “Branch Water” being served in the South. The words conjured up visions of dead trees and swamps. Stick to the juleps.
Fran’s birthday fell on a Friday. On Monday she drove to town. Within four hours she had purchased the perfect green velvet evening gown, taken Carl’s best suit to the cleaners, bought him a ruffled shirt and picked up the groceries. On the big day all she would have to do was go for the suit, buy gardenias to float in a bowl on the table, and set her hair in ringlets. Elvis was forgotten in the excitement. She would just have to hum “Old Folks at Home.”
One thing bothered Fran. How was she going to get Carl into the ruffled shirt? There were certain things he could be very stubborn about, and donning what he would consider a “sissy” shirt was likely to be at the top of the list. She finally decided the shirt had to be returned and came home with an unadorned silk one in its place.
During the week leading up to the birthday Fran seemed to pull a cloak of Southernness around her. A few “Yawl’s” to Carl didn’t cause so much as a raised eyebrow. He really was an exceptional man.
On Friday, after Fran returned with the suit and the flowers, everything was ready. The meat, flowers and makings for the mint juleps were in the refrigerator with the broccoli, waiting to be transformed for the elegant evening ahead. Fran’s hair had been set in small rollers in what she hoped would result in sausage-like ringlets.
She went to the bedroom to try on the gorgeous, terribly expensive green velvet dress one more time before getting the dinner started. Zipping up the back she twirled once in front of the mirror and knew she was wearing the dress of a lifetime. She justified the purchase by telling herself it would be her Christmas dress for 5 years. She could picture Scarlett O’Hara coming down the long staircase at Tara in this very gown. Wait until Carl saw it. Surely with all of this, she could coax her somewhat reserved husband into a little, “Let’s Pretend.” If this night didn’t bring out the Rhett Butler in him, then only the burning of Atlanta would.
Suddenly there was a loud squawk from the back yard. It was one of her chickens! Too close to the house! How did it get out! What was happening to it! The squawks continued, rising in decibels.
“My Hens!” She picked up the long skirt and ran.
A neighbor dog had one of the chickens by the throat! Fran yelled at the top of her voice and the culprit bolted for home. The bird was skittering around the ground, head partly severed from the body. “What can I do?” she screeched. “I have to…I have to….”
Never in her life had she killed anything larger than a fly, but there was no way to save the poor hen and it was suffering terribly. In a panic she dashed for the shed and searched with wild eyes for some way to finish off the victim in the yard. She found an old rusty axe.
“I’ll have to cut its head off. Noooooo.” She moaned “NO! I couldn’t! I couldn’t!”
But no champion popped out of the cobwebby corners to do the dirty work. It had to be her.
Axe in shaking hand, Fran approached the flopping chicken with great trepidation. How could she get it to lie still while she finished the job of decapitation? Putting her foot down gingerly on the bird’s legs, Fran proceeded to swing the axe. The chicken shot out from underneath her foot as she barely grazed its body with a much too gentle blow. Injured even more, the hen was still far from dead.
Blood squirted everywhere, including the hem of her dress. When Fran say the stains on the green velvet, something inside of her snapped. Her dress! Anger quickly wiped out squeamishness. The thin veneer of civilization burst like a bubble. With a battle cry, she pounced. Reaching down, she grabbed the chicken, trying to force it into immobility, her foot once again on the yellow legs. By the time she let go long enough to aim another swing the condemned bird had flipped off across the grass.
The axe wielding Southern Belle was jerking as much as the bird. She was sweating, blood-spattered and MAD. She heard herself yelling nonsensically, “Lie still so I can kill you, you stupid thing!”
Strange feelings whirled through her mind. Compassion had been the motive, and yet she was jumping around the yard like a crazy frog, her killing instincts at an all time high. Hate for that chicken was dripping from her lips.
Eventually, it was over. The flattened form on the ground bore little resemblance to the bird family. Fran snatched the feathered corpse and stomped toward the back porch.
After the chicken was plucked and cleaned Fran showered and changed her clothes, completely exhausted in every way. She knew she had to face the kitchen, and after a few moments of deep breathing in front of the sink she opened the refrigerator door. She stared at the Prime Rib. It stared back, egged on by the gardenias. “I’m not going to cook you NOW” she railed at the roast, “I’m not going to cook you EVER!”
The only concession Fran made to her original plans was the Mint Juleps, and that was only because she was so thirsty after her axe-wielding craze. When the batch was mixed up she drank close to a third of the pitcher before frying the chicken.
With the same intensity that had overcome her as she slaughtered the bird, she slammed the door, envisioning a certain dog’s head caught in the process.
Later, Carl came in the back door and into the kitchen. “What is that junk hanging out of the garbage can?” He queried. “The green cloth with the red paint all over it?”
“Not important,” his wife answered in a scarcely whispered monotone.
Carl shot her a glance, and then left the kitchen, calling over his shoulder, “I’m going to change my clothes. Be right back.”
Fran was sitting at the dining room table when Carl came in. “Happy Birthday, Honey.”
“You already told me this morning.”
“I know, but it’s still your birthday. Are you sure you want to stay home tonight? Is there anything cold to drink?” And he stepped into the kitchen and opened the fridge.
Fiddling with the broken button on her old pink sweater, she stopped her husband by saying, “Yes, I want to stay home, and there is something to drink in here on the table.”
She kept trying to push the unruly hair out of her face. It had become a massive ball of fuzz when she tried to brush out the ringlets after the catastrophe had left her so defeated.
Again, Carl’s voice reached he from the other room. “What are all these flowers in the fridge for?”
“For your funeral
if you ask one more question,” his wife muttered inaudibly.
|
in that frying pan? No, we didn't think so! |
 |
Wearing jeans and a plaid shirt--knowing nothing of a new silk one--Carl-Rhett sat down, glanced across the table, speared a flattened chicken leg and said, “You look different tonight, Honey. Your hair is sort of….” Seeing the sparks glittering in her eyes, he contented himself with, “…uh. Different. Is that a new sweater? Boy, did I have a bad day.”
A cruel thought passed through the mind of the woman with the, “different” hair. “FRANKLY MY DEAR, I DON’T GIVE A-------.”
What she said, was “Hmmm.”
The remainder of the meal was a sober affair. Carl drank his Mint Julep, remarking that it was pretty good Kool-aid, and he thought the leaf stuck in the top was a, “…cute idea.”
“Hmmm.” Fran again replied, pressing her leg painfully against the rung of the chair to prevent any other response from escaping her lips.
Half an hour later, the dishwasher was starting into high gear when Carl walked up behind Fran and touched her arm. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to see a movie?”
“I just don’t feel like doing anything, Carl. It’s been a long, bloody day.”
“Bloody?”
“Did I say that?
“I think so.”
Carl was mystified at his wife’s behavior, but led her into the living room and settled himself on the sofa next to her. He drew an envelope from his shirt pocket and held it out to her. “I know you have been kind of down in the dumps lately, Fran. I’ve been trying to think of something that might cheer you up and….” He actually seemed a little shy, “I think I might have succeeded. Open the envelope.”
Finally, Fran looked up at the man beside her. He really was making an effort to be sweet. She hadn’t thought he noticed her moods that much. Frustration melted and she saw a vague “something” in her husband of many years. Almost at once she realized what it was. It was the young man she had first fallen in love with. “I’m sorry to be so grumpy. What is it, Carl?” She put her attention to the envelope.
While she was working it open Carl said almost sheepishly, “I hope you won’t think it’s silly but I’ve always known my wife really harbored the heart of a Confederate.”
Fran sat silently, holding two round-trip tickets to Atlanta, Georgia. A great lump came up in her throat. It eased down and then up again. With something between a burp and a hiccup, she gave up the effort at composure and the tears flowed. “I didn’t know you paid much attention to my silliness,” she sobbed.
“It’s not silliness,” he hugged her to him, “And we are going to see all of those old plantations you talk about, Honey. We leave next Saturday and we are staying two weeks. The kids know all about it and everything has been arranged. What do you think? Can we see enough in two weeks?”
“Oh, Carl.”
Three weeks later Carl and Fran were seated on the homeward-bound jet. They had squeezed in every plantation tour possible. The plane taxied down the runway and turned to maneuver onto the takeoff strip. Gathering speed, it was soon soaring over the city of Atlanta. Fran leaned forward, looking down, as new memories took her beyond the skyscrapers to the surrounding countryside.
She reached over to kiss her husband, and in his smile she could again see that young man she had rediscovered the night of her birthday. There was plenty of time to get acquainted with this guy she had thought she knew so well. And now, she could say with Scarlett O’Hara--although for an entirely different reason--“I’ll never be hungry again.”
© 2002 by Audrey Yeager.
The caricature drawing of Audrey Yeager is © 2001 by Jim
Hummel. The illustration is from IMSI's Master Clips Collection,
1895 Francisco Blvd. E., San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA.
|
|
You can comment on this column online. Please address your message to either "The Editors" or Audrey Yeager. To send an email, click here: talkback@thecolumnists.com
| Home | About Us | Archives | Talkback | Shopping Mall |