Cannot Wait to Get to Heaven - Fannie Flagg [96]
Later, as Dr. Steward the dermatologist stared at her nose with a magnifying glass, Norma felt as if she were going to throw up. As she continued to look, the doctor asked, “Tell me, Mrs. Warren, do you blush easily?”
“What? Oh, yes.”
“Uh-huh,” said the doctor as Norma’s heart pounded away. “And do you have any allergies that you know of?”
“No, other than maybe Chinese food…. My face gets sort of hot and red, but…”
The doctor turned around to wash her hands, and Norma heard herself ask in a raspy voice, “Is it cancer, Doctor?”
The doctor looked at her. “No, what you have is rosacea.”
“What?”
“Rosacea. It’s very common with English and Irish or other light-skinned people. Blushing easily is one of the symptoms.”
“It is? I thought I was always just embarrassed or shy. But what are these bumps?”
“You’re having a break-out.”
“But why?”
“It could have been triggered by a number of things…heat, sun, or stress. Have you been under any unusual stress lately?”
Norma said, “Yes, I have. My aunt just fell out of a tree and…well, I won’t go into detail, but, yes.”
As Norma drove to the drugstore, she realized that her entire image of herself had been wrong. Whenever someone told a dirty joke or she had been embarrassed, she had always thought it was because she was shy, but it had just been a skin condition all along.
Norma stood at the counter waiting for her prescription for Finacea, and was convinced that the stress of worrying about her aunt had caused her nose to break out. It was no telling what would be happening to her next. She looked over at the blood pressure machine in the corner of the drugstore and she thought about going over and seeing if hers had rocketed sky-high in the last week, but decided against it. If it had, she didn’t want to know. Hopefully she would just drop dead in her tracks, without having to be scared to death by all kinds of tests, and maybe before she had to undergo a complete heart transplant and wind up in a power chair herself. This was all the more reason why Elner should go to Happy Acres, where professionals could keep an eye on her, and Norma wouldn’t have to worry herself into the grave about her. Norma would wait until after Easter and then have a serious talk with Elner.
“Here you go, Norma,” said Hattie Smith, a cousin of Dorothy Smith’s late husband, Robert Smith. But of course, according to Aunt Elner, Dorothy was now married to a man named Raymond. “Rub a thin layer on your nose, twice a day, and that should do it.”
As Norma walked out with her ointment, Irene Goodnight walked in, and said to Hattie, as she held out her hands, “Hattie, look, are these freckles or old-age spots.”
Hattie looked at the seventy-three-year-old woman’s hands and lied.
“Honey, those are freckles.”
“Well, good,” said Irene. She turned around and left, happier than when she came in.
Hattie had knocked herself out of a sale, but “What the heck,” she thought, “old age is hard enough. What Irene doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”
Ask Me No Questions
6:47 AM
Macky waited until a few days after she was home to broach the subject of the gun with Aunt Elner. On the fourth morning, they were sitting on the back porch as usual watching the sun come up, having coffee, and talking before he went to work.
Elner was saying, “There was the prettiest sunset last night, Macky, it’s getting later and later. Pretty soon we will be able to sit out until seven-thirty. I didn’t come in last night until a little past seven.”
“Oh yeah, summer is definitely on its way.” He then looked over at her and said, “Aunt Elner, did you know that there was a gun in your dirty-clothes basket?”
“There was?” she said as innocently as possible.
“Yes, you know darn well there was.”
Elner looked out into the backyard at the cat who was stalking around. “I think old Sonny is getting fat, don’t you?” she said, trying to change the subject. “Look at him, he just waddles anymore.”
“Aunt Elner,” Macky said, “you’re busted so