Standing in the Rainbow - Fannie Flagg [198]
After all of Verbena’s trying so hard to pep her up, Verbena never knew that a bee up her dress had finally done the trick. From that day forward, Verbena was convinced that it had been little Frieda Pushnik who had done the trick and Tot never told her any different.
Soon everyone in town knew Tot was going to recover from her terrible ordeal. For the first time in weeks she pulled up the shades in the living room, and week after week the shades came up room by room until one day Tot got dressed and went back to work with a new outlook on life. “Norma,” she said, “I’ve been on the verge of a nervous breakdown all my life and now that I’ve had it, I feel a whole lot better.”
Daughters
MACKY AND NORMA’S DAUGHTER, Linda, had married but continued to work to help put her husband through law school, a fact that irritated Macky to no end. “If he can’t support a wife on his salary, then he shouldn’t have gotten married,” he said. However, at the time Norma thought it was a good idea for Linda not to quit her job. “I wish I had a job,” Norma added wistfully.
Several months later, when the Pancake House opened, Norma applied for the job of hostess and, to her surprise, was hired but her mother, Ida, now an imposing dowager of seventy-five who wore six strands of pearls around her ample bosom and carried a black cane, talked her out of it. “Norma, for God’s sake, how would it look to people? The daughter of the president of the National Federated Women’s Club of Missouri being a hostess at a pancake house. If you will not think of your own social position, then think of mine!” And so Norma continued to be, as she put it, just a housewife. Her hopes of becoming a grandmother had been dashed when Linda had had a miscarriage in her third month. After the miscarriage, Linda and her husband had begun having problems. Linda had wanted to try again but he was against it until he finished school. Macky said it was because the husband was afraid he would lose his meal ticket but as Norma pointed out, he’d never liked him in the first place.
One afternoon a year later, when Macky walked in the door from work, Norma met him in the living room. “Linda called and said she is calling back at six because she wants to talk to both of us.” They looked at each other wide-eyed. “What do you think?”
Macky said, “I hope it’s what we think.”
“Do you think it could be?” Norma asked.
“I’m hoping it is.”
“Do you want anything to eat now or do you want to wait?”
Macky looked at his watch. “We only have forty-five minutes. Let’s just wait.”
“All right, but what are we going to do for forty-five minutes?”
“Should we call her?”
“No, she’s on the road and said she had a meeting and would call us when she finished.”
“I hope it’s what I think it is,” Macky said.
“I know you do, but you never know, and if it is what we think, don’t offer any advice. Just say it’s your decision and whatever you decide to do about it we will support you.”
“Norma, I know how to talk to my own daughter. She knows how I feel.”
“I know she knows how you feel. Especially about her husband—you certainly made that clear, nobody can accuse you of being subtle.” Norma shook her head. “Making a complete spectacle of you. I’ve never been so embarrassed in my entire life.”
“All right, Norma,” said Macky.
“You could have at least said something in private and not waited till her wedding day to pull a stunt like that.”
Macky got up and went into the den but Norma continued. “Imagine such a thing. It’s part of the ceremony. Everyone knows when they say who gives this woman in marriage, you are supposed to say ‘I do’ and step back.” Norma got up and started rearranging the pillows on the sofa. “But no, you had to say right