Standing in the Rainbow - Fannie Flagg [195]
“My sponsor said that the sooner I told you, the better off we would both be.”
“I’m glad he thought so,” she said.
“So now that you know, what do you want to do about it?”
“What do I want to do about it?”
“Yes,” he said and looked at his watch like he was late for an appointment.
“I want you to get up and call that woman and tell her that you are already married.”
“Oh, now, Tot, be reasonable. Jackie Sue needs me and you don’t.”
Tot could not believe her ears. “Jackie Sue Potts? Who’s been with every man in this town?”
“Tot, don’t say anything you will regret. You don’t know what a hard life she has had.”
“She’s had a hard life?”
“Tot, the past is the past. We all have to live in the present, one day at a time.”
“I’ll tell you one thing, One Day at a Time. I’ll give you a divorce but on one condition. You take that woman and you get as far away from us as you can because I will not live in the same town and have to see her or you, do you hear me?”
Tot had felt like a complete fool. Not only was the girl younger than her daughter, but all this time she had been fixing Jackie Sue’s hair. She had been doing it so Jackie Sue would look good for a date with Tot’s own husband!
Of course James had not moved and soon she had to see him and Jackie Sue floating all over town, showing off their new baby. That morning she wondered why she had finally reached the end of her rope. Maybe it was because she was just so tired. So bone tired that at long last she could not hold on anymore. By seven o’clock that morning the phone started ringing. She knew it was Darlene, wanting to know if she could drop her children off at the house so she and that new husband of hers could go off to the stock-car races. But for the first time Tot did not pick up the phone. Several more times before noon the phone rang, and several more people wanting something were annoyed because she did not answer. She heard the phone, but even the sound of the ringing did not stir the slightest, smallest interest or need to answer. Tot wondered what had happened. What in her had finally broken. What had undone her at last so she could lie there as peaceful and as silent as a radio that had suddenly been unplugged. That was it, she thought, I am unplugged. Dead inside at last. No more currents running through me, forcing me to keep going, to turn on, to feel anything.
Was this permanent or was this just the vacation she had never had in her life? How long would she be off, she wondered, and she hoped it was forever. It was so peaceful, so soothing, so painless to be alive but not to feel. It was as if she had stepped out of her body and left the house, although the woman who used to be her was still there, empty, hollow.
Around three o’clock she decided to try to get up out of bed. She was almost afraid that if she moved that old self might jump back in but as she slowly got up and walked through the house she was so relieved. She could move and nothing of her old self came back. She was a ghost in her own home, floating around and observing life, but not being affected by it in any way. What a pleasant state! What a peaceful way to spend the days! What was it? she thought, as she wandered through the house, pulling down the shades, taking the phone off the hook, and sticking it in the closet. What was this new state? After a while she identified it. It was quite simple. She just didn’t care. After a lifetime of caring, trying, struggling, looking for answers, today one had come. Today was the day that she simply did not care anymore about anything.
Let her kids get upset. Let the shop go to hell in a handbasket. Let the church committees wonder about why she wasn’t there. Let the world go to hell, she no longer cared.
She made herself some Campbell’s tomato soup, drank a Coke, ate some crackers and a piece of cheese, and went back to bed. The dishes were still on the table. She didn’t care. She dreamed of that one day, that one afternoon when she was seven. It had been a warm day and her schoolmate had invited her