Cannot Wait to Get to Heaven - Fannie Flagg [3]
Norma had a complete horror of being anything like her mother. Ida Shimfissle, Elner’s younger and prettier sister, had married well and had never been very nice to Elner. She had refused even to visit Elner after she’d moved to town, as long as Elner kept chickens in her backyard. “It’s so country,” she had said. But yesterday when Aunt Elner pointed at the sunflowers and announced with pride, “Aren’t they pretty, Merle brought them over, and you don’t even have to water them either,” it had been all Norma could do not to grab them and run screaming to the nearest trash can. Instead, she had just nodded pleasantly. Norma also knew where Merle had gotten the flowers. She had seen some exactly like them at Tuesday Mornings. Unfortunately, the local cemetery was just full of similar arrangements. Norma had always been appalled that people would actually put plastic flowers on a grave; to her, they seemed as cheap-looking as black velvet paintings of the Last Supper, but then, she never understood why anyone would want aluminum sliding glass windows, or keep a television set in the dining room either.
As far as Norma was concerned there was no excuse for having bad taste anymore, or at least, none that she could think of, when all you had to do was look in magazines and simply copy what you saw, or watch the design shows on the Home & Garden Channel. Thank God that Martha Stewart had come along when she had and introduced a little style to the American public. Granted, she was a jailbird now, but she had done a lot of good before she went. But it wasn’t only home and entertainment matters that bothered Norma, she was constantly dismayed at the way people dressed out in public. “You owe it to your fellow human beings to try and look as nice as you can, it’s just common courtesy,” her mother had always said. But now all anybody ever wore, even on planes, were tennis shoes, sweat suits, and baseball caps. Not that Norma dressed up all the time like she used to. She had been known to run out to the mall in her orange velour jogging outfit, but she never went anywhere without earrings and makeup. On those two points, she could never compromise. When Norma looked up at the clock again it was almost eight-thirty! Why wasn’t Macky calling? He had had plenty of time to get there. “Oh, God,” she thought. “Don’t tell me Macky has had a wreck and been killed in an accident on the way over there, that’s all I need this morning. Aunt Elner falls out of a tree and breaks her hip, and I become a widow on the same day!” At 8:31 she could not stand it another second, and was just about ready to dial Macky’s number, when the phone rang, and she almost jumped out of her skin.
Macky began by saying, “Norma, now listen to me. I don’t want you to get excited.” She could tell something was terribly wrong by the tone in his voice. He had always started conversations with “She’s fine, I told you not to worry,” but not this time. Norma held her breath. “This is it,” she thought. The call she had been so terrified of receiving was actually taking place. She felt her heart begin to pound even harder than before and her mouth go dry as she tried to remain calm and brace herself for the news.
Macky continued, “I don’t want you to panic, but they’ve called an ambulance.”
“AN AMBULANCE!” she screamed. “Oh my God! Has she broken something? I knew it! Is she badly hurt?”
“I don’t know, but you better come over here and go with us, you’ll probably