Shiloh and Other Stories - Bobbie Ann Mason [78]
“Plastic, yuck!” cries Holly.
“I should have known I’d say the wrong thing,” says Waldeen.
“My grandmother liked geraniums,” Joe says.
At the picnic, Holly eats only slaw and the crust from a drumstick. Waldeen remarks, “Mr. Spock is going to have a feast.”
“You’ve got a treasure, Waldeen,” says C. W. “Most kids just want to load up on junk.”
“Wonder how long a person can survive without meat,” says Waldeen, somewhat breezily. But she suddenly feels miserable about the way she treats Holly. Everything Waldeen does is so roundabout, so devious. Disgusted, Waldeen flings a chicken bone out among the graves. Once, her ex-husband wouldn’t bury the dog that was hit by a car. It lay in a ditch for over a week. She remembers Joe saying several times, “Wonder if the dog is still there.” He wouldn’t admit that he didn’t want to bury it. Waldeen wouldn’t do it because he had said he would do it. It was a war of nerves. She finally called the Highway Department to pick it up. Joe McClain, she thinks now, would never be that barbaric.
Joe pats Holly on the head and says, “My girl’s stubborn, but she knows what she likes.” He makes a Jimmy Durante face, which causes Holly to smile. Then he brings out a surprise for her, a bag of trail mix, which includes pecans and raisins. When Holly pounces on it, Waldeen notices that Holly is not wearing the Indian bracelet her father gave her. Waldeen wonders if there are vegetarians in Arizona.
—
Blue sky burns through the intricate spring leaves of the maples on the fence line. The light glances off the gravestones—a few thin slabs that date back to the last century and eleven sturdy blocks of marble and granite. Joe’s grandmother’s grave is a brown heap.
Waldeen opens another beer. She and Betty are stretched out under a maple tree and Holly is reading. Betty is talking idly about the diet she intends to go on. Waldeen feels too lazy to move. She watches the men work. While C. W. rakes leaves, Joe washes off the gravestones with water he brought in a plastic jug. He scrubs out the carvings with a brush. He seems as devoted as a man washing and polishing his car on a Saturday afternoon. Betty plays he-loves-me-he-loves-me-not with the fingers of a maple leaf. The fragments fly away in a soft breeze.
From her Sea World tote bag, Betty pulls out playing cards with Holly Hobbie pictures on them. The old-fashioned child with the bonnet hiding her face is just the opposite of Waldeen’s own strange daughter. Waldeen sees Holly watching the men. They pick up their beer cans from a pink, shiny tombstone and drink a toast to Joe’s great-great-grandfather, Joseph McClain, who was killed in the Civil War. His stone, almost hidden in dead grasses, says 1841–1862.
“When I die, they can burn me and dump the ashes in the lake,” says C. W.
“Not me,” says Joe. “I want to be buried right here.”
“Want to be? You planning to die soon?”
Joe laughs. “No, but if it’s my time, then it’s my time. I wouldn’t be afraid to go.”
“I guess that’s the right way to look at it.”
Betty says to Waldeen, “He’d marry me if I’d have his kid.”
“What made you decide you don’t want a kid, anyhow?” Waldeen is shuffling the cards, fifty-two identical children in bonnets.
“Who says I decided? You just do whatever comes natural. Whatever’s right for you.” Betty drinks from her can of beer.
“Most people do just the opposite,” Waldeen says. “They have kids without thinking.”
“Talk about decisions,” Betty goes on, “did you see Sixty Minutes when they were telling about Palm Springs? And how all those rich people live? One woman had hundreds of dresses, and Morley Safer was asking her how she ever decided what on earth to wear. He was strolling through her closet. He could have played golf in her closet.”
“Rich people don’t know beans,” says Waldeen. She drinks some beer, then deals out the cards for a game of hearts. Betty snatches