Shiloh and Other Stories - Bobbie Ann Mason [9]
“I put thirty in the widow and they caught it,” Thelma tells Mack.
“The rook’s a sign of bad luck,” Mack says. “A rook ain’t nothing but a crow.”
When he returns to the football game he is watching on TV, Edda says with a laugh, “Did y’all hear what Erma Bombeck said? She said any man who watches more than a hundred and sixty-eight football games in one year ought to be declared legally dead.”
They all laugh in little bursts and spasms, but Mary Lou says defensively, “Mack doesn’t watch that much football. He just watches it because it’s on. Usually he has his nose stuck in a book.”
“I used to read,” says Clausie. “But I got out of the habit.”
Later, Mary Lou complains to Mack about his behavior. “You could at least be friendly,” she says.
“I like to see you playing cards,” says Mack.
“You’re changing the subject.”
“You light up and you look so pretty.”
“I’ll say one thing for those old gals. They get out and go. They don’t hide under a bushel. Like some people I know.”
“I don’t hide under a bushel.”
“You think they’re just a bunch of silly old widow women.”
“You look beautiful when you’re having a good time,” says Mack, goosing her and making her jump.
“They’re not that old, though,” says Mary Lou. “They don’t act it. Edda’s a great-grandmother, but she’s just as spry! She goes to Paducah driving that little Bobcat like she owned the road. And Clausie hasn’t got a brain in her head. She’s just like a kid—”
But now Mack is absorbed in something on TV, a pudding commercial. Mary Lou has tried to be patient with Mack, thinking that he will grow out of his current phase. Sooner or later, she and Mack will have to face growing older together. Mack says that having a daughter in college makes him feel he has missed something, but Mary Lou has tried to make him see that they could still enjoy life. Before she began playing regularly with the Rookers, she had several ideas for doing things together, now that they were no longer tied down with a family. She suggested bowling, camping, a trip to Opryland. But Mack said he’d rather improve his mind. He has been reading Shōgun. He made excuses about the traffic. They had a chance to go on a free weekend to the Paradise Valley Estates, a resort development in the Ozarks. There was no obligation. All they had to do was hear a talk and watch some slides. But Mack hated the idea and said there was a catch. Mack made Mary Lou feel she was pressuring him, and she decided not to bring up these topics for a while. She would wait for him to come out of his shell. But she was disappointed about the free weekend. The resort had swimming, nature trails, horseback riding, golf, fishing, and pontoon boat rentals. The bathrooms had whirlpools.
—
When the telephone rings at five o’clock one morning, Mary Lou is certain there must be bad news from Judy. As she runs to the kitchen to answer the telephone, her mind runs through dope, suicide, dorm fires. The man on the phone has a loud voice that blares out at her. He makes her guess who he is. He turns out to be Ed Williams, her long-lost brother. Mary Lou is speechless, having concluded several years ago that he must be dead. Ed had gone to Texas for his health, traveling with a woman with a dark complexion and pierced ears. Now he tells Mary Lou he is married to that woman, named Linda, and they are living in California with her two children from a former marriage.
“What do you look like?” asks Mary Lou.
“I’m a beanpole. I have to bend over to make a shadow.”
Mary Lou says, “I’m old and fat and ugly. Mack would whip me to hear that. I’m not really, but after nine years, you’d know the difference. It’s been nine years, Ed Williams. I could kill you for doing us like that.”
“I just finished building me a house, but I don’t have a thing I want to put in it except a washer and dryer.”
“All the girls are gone. Judy’s in college—first one to go. We’re proud. She says she’s going to make a doctor. Betty and Janie are married, with younguns.”
“I’ve got me a camper