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By Marie Huston I was being good, but it didn't seem to matter much because they had forgotten I was even in the room. I was glad Mrs. Cantrell had forgotten I was sitting there because she always got so nervous when I was around and watched me real close to see that I didn't mess up her clean house, but Mama had forgotten all about me, too. She had promised we wouldn't stay long and we'd already been there forever. I had walked over to the window to watch the weird fish in Mrs. Cantrell's aquarium, so I guess they thought I wasn't listening to what they said. Of course, I was. "I think we ought to do a little something for Mary Beth. Maybe a baby shower? What do you think?" Mama gave Mrs. Cantrell a long look and replied, "I think the heat's finally gotten to you, Patsy. Either that, or the aliens have landed and taken over your body." Mrs. Cantrell lifted her hand as though to smooth down her already perfect blonde pageboy. Mrs. Cantrell didn't look like most of Mama's friends. She looked like a movie star. I had told Mama that one day and she'd said Mrs. Cantrell could afford to go around looking like a movie star because she didn't have any kids. The minute it came out of her mouth, I saw that look she gets when she's worried she's said something I might repeat, so she hurried up and said, "It's real sad for Mrs. Cantrell, honey, that she was never able to have children of her own." I didn't buy that for a minute but I let Mama think I had. Mrs. Cantrell didn't want any kids. Heck, she didn't even like children. I could tell by how nervous she got every time Mama took me to her house. She'd watch me like a hawk, as if I were a two-year-old, just waiting for me to spill my tea or track dirt onto her white floors. She'd greet me at the door with a huge frozen smile and say, "Oh, here's the little darling. Doesn't she look precious?" What she really meant was, "Oh, no, did you have to bring her again?" I could tell, but Mama never seemed to catch on. Mrs. Cantrell looked at Mama, gave a fake little laugh and said, "Oh, don't be silly. I'm serious. I think we should do something." Mama set her iced tea on a nearby coaster and leaned back into her chair. "Okay, this has got to be good. Exactly why would you, Patsy Cantrell, of all people, want to give a baby shower for Mary Beth Hogan?" "Well, you know," Mrs. Cantrell stuttered. She wasn't looking Mama in the eye, but gave a jittery little giggle as she fiddled with her watch. "We've known each other forever. It'd only be natural for us to do something for her. After all, you were a bridesmaid in her wedding." "Yes, I was a bridesmaid." Mama replied. "But if I remember correctly, you refused to even go to her wedding. If I remember correctly, you planned a trip to Florida just so you wouldn't have to go to her wedding." "I did not!" Mrs. Cantrell's mouth became hard. "You're making that up. We had that trip planned for weeks before her invitations went out. Besides, that was a long time ago. Mary Beth and I are very good friends now and it wouldn't look right for us not to give her a shower. After all, she can't have any decent baby clothes left from the last one." "Weren't you the one that said this fourth baby was going a bit too far at her age? Excessive? Isn't that the exact word you used?" "Oh, you take everything so seriously. You know I didn't mean that. It was a joke. Now, are you going to help me with this shower or not?" "Not until I get an answer. You've hated Mary Beth Hogan since we were in college and I can't believe I'm sitting here listening to you plan a baby shower for her." "Why do you always think the worst of everyone? Maybe we didn't get along back in school, but I would hope that we've grown up a little since then." Mama sipped her tea before she spoke again. "Well, Mary Beth and I haven't been close at all in the past few years. Since her children started going to private school, we don't work together on all those school committees anymore and I don't see her except at church. I'm not close enough to her these days to be the one giving her a baby shower." "Oh, that's not true. You see her at the garden club and she's invited to everything." "You forget, Patsy, that I teach school. I only go to the garden club during the summer months. And I did not see her invited to your last dinner party." "Well, I couldn't invite the entire town to a silly little dinner party, could I?" I remembered Mama telling Daddy how it was just like Patsy Cantrell to plan a party the same night Mary Beth Hogan was having one -- that you'd think after all these years, she'd get over being jealous of Mary Beth. I had asked why Mrs. Cantrell was jealous of Mrs. Hogan and Mama had sent me out of the room and told me I shouldn't be listening to her conversation with Daddy. I asked how could I help listening when I was sitting right there and Mama had gotten red in the face, so I knew it was time for me to go to my room. But it didn't stop me from wondering. So I was pleased as punch that Mama seemed to have forgotten I was in the room again. That Tootsie Roll pop she had promised me if I was good at Mrs. Cantrell's house could wait a little longer for all I cared. I was going to hear adult stuff now. "Okay, Patsy," Mama said. "Why all this sudden interest in being nice to Mary Beth? Remember, she's the same Mary Beth you criticized when she was elected President of the PTA. And you were furious when she was put in charge of the barbecue down at the church. I could take the list way on back to college when she beat you out for Rush Chairman that year. I've listened to you talk about her for years. I know you'll forgive me if I think it seems a bit odd that out of the blue, you, of all people, want to do something nice for her." "Can't a person just be nice once in a while and do something for an old friend without having an ulterior motive?" I held my breath as I waited for Mama to answer this one. I wondered if she was going to tell Mrs. Cantrell what she had told Daddy, that Mrs. Cantrell never did anything without a reason. Mrs. Cantrell didn't give Mama a chance to answer. She rushed on, "Look, it won't be any trouble. We'll have it here." She waved her hand across her fancy living room. "I'll pay for all the food and I'll do all the work. I just need a little help with the cooking." Well, that explained it. Everybody knew that Mrs. Cantrell was a lousy cook and that my mama was the best cook in the whole world. She needed my mama's cooking to make her party look good. But Mama perked right up and seemed interested now. She loved to cook for a party. She asked, "What were you thinking of? A luncheon or just a few tea sandwiches?" Mrs. Cantrell had a smug expression on her face, but it looked like a smile. "Oh, don't you think an afternoon tea would be nice? Not anything formal. Maybe some of those rainbow sandwiches you do and a cheese ball. See, it won't be much hassle at all. We'll keep it simple so it won't be a lot of work but will look like we went to a lot of trouble." She had Mama hooked now and she knew it. "I'll get up a little menu and don't worry about the invitations. I'll take care of everything." "How many are you thinking of having?" Mama asked. "Well, I don't know. I shouldn't think very many. Maybe just some of the ladies from the church. Let me give it some thought and I'll call you." Mama stood up and motioned to me that it was time to go. We said good-bye and went out to the car. I asked, "Do I get the Tootsie Roll pop? I didn't get fingerprints on the fish glass this time." Mama just nodded without saying anything, kinda like her mind was somewhere else. I knew where her mind was -- she was planning the party. Mama loved to plan parties. Maybe this time I'd get to help. A week or two later, I was outside watering the tomato plants we had just put out and Daddy was pulling weeds out of the rose bed when Mama came storming out of the house. Her face was red and I wondered if she'd found that frog I was keeping under my bed, but she passed right by me as if I were invisible and stalked up to the rose bed and stood there fuming, with her hands on her hips. I didn't think Daddy had a frog under his bed, but I knew somebody was in trouble and I was hoping it was him instead of me. "You won't believe what Patsy Cantrell has done this time!" she said. Daddy stood up and looked at her. "She's invited the entire garden club to this baby shower. Eighty-nine people! And it's just the two of us giving it! She's calling it a tea which means with that many people, it'll take a week just to fix all the food. She sent the invitations without even talking to me about it." Daddy put his hand on her shoulder and said, "Okay, calm down. She's paying for the whole thing and she said she's going to help. It'll be fine." "Oh, you know she won't help. Look how much she helped at the plant sale last fall. She took on the chairman's job just to spite Mary Beth and then got other people to do all the work. Every time she's ever been in charge of anything -- as long as I've known her -- she's taken all the credit while other people have worked themselves to death. I've a good mind just to call the whole thing off." "Not if the invitations have gone out with your name on them, you won't." "No," Mama admitted, "But I'd like to. I'd like just once to teach Patsy Cantrell a lesson. But you're right. I won't do it. Maybe she will help. She sounded like she meant it when she said it." "Well," Daddy said, "miracles do happen." He smiled. She smiled back and said, "Oh, I know. But at least it explains one thing. I've figured out why Patsy wants to give Mary Beth a baby shower. I knew it the minute she told me she had invited the garden club ladies. Mary Beth's mother is in charge of selecting the next chairman for the Spring Tour of Homes & Gardens and, you know, whoever plans the annual tour is a shoe-in for President the following year. Patsy's been itching for that job for the past five years. She thinks she'll impress Mary Beth's mother with this shower and finally get picked to do it." They walked off around the corner of the house without ever remembering I was standing there. Sometimes it pays to stay quiet. Mrs. Cantrell dropped by the house a few days later. She was dressed in a solid white dress and I wondered how in the world she ever kept it clean. Mama wouldn't let me have any more white shorts because the red clay was so hard to get out of the seat. Mrs. Cantrell's hair flipped under perfectly and she had on bright red lipstick. I wondered if Mama thought she looked like a harlot. That's what she'd called me when she told me to go wash my face because I'd put on lipstick right as we were walking out the door to church and mine had been candy lipstick and not near as red as Mrs. Cantrell's. But I knew that even if Mama thought she looked like a harlot, she wouldn't say it till after Mrs. Cantrell left because it hadn't sounded like a compliment from her tone to me that Sunday. Mama seemed glad to see her and invited her into the den where she was stringing green beans. Mrs. Cantrell picked her way through the toys on the floor as if she thought a snake was going to strike her and sat down in my place on the sofa in front of the TV. Mama made me turn the TV down so they could talk and I missed hearing the Lennon Sisters sing their first song on The Mickey Mouse Club. But Mrs. Cantrell didn't stay long and I got to hear the second song. It was "Oh, the wayward winnnnnnnddddd is a restless wind." Mrs. Cantrell had brought Mama a copy of the menu she wanted at the tea. Mama took a long look at it and said, "Now, Patsy, you know if we do all this, you're going to have to help me. There's no way one person can do this alone. If you're not going to help, we need to cut it back. The petit fours alone take forever to decorate." Mrs. Cantrell promised to help. In fact, as she was leaving, she told Mama she'd pick her up on Thursday afternoon and they'd go grocery shopping together. Then they'd have all day Friday to do the cooking. I wasn't convinced but Mama seemed to be. On Thursday afternoon, I was just getting to a good part in my new Nancy Drew book when Mama came to my room and told me to get dressed; we were going to the store. I looked at my shorts and said I was dressed, but Mama made me change into a skirt and blouse so nobody down at the grocery store would think I was a hobo. I played all the time with Marilyn Brackett and Mrs. Brackett knew I wasn't a hobo, but Mama told me not to argue and to get ready; she needed some help. With a painful glance back at Nancy Drew, I said, "But I thought Mrs. Cantrell was going to help you." Mama came as close to snorting as I ever knew. "Well, she forgot she had a committee meeting this afternoon. But she promises she'll be over first thing in the morning to help with the cooking." Sometimes you know when you'd just better shut up and leave things alone. So I put Nancy Drew down and got dressed to go to town. I loved going to Mrs. Brackett's store. It was bigger than the little country store near our house and had rows and rows of wonderful things, like real bakery-made cakes. I wondered how old and stale they were cause I didn't know anybody who would buy cakes instead of making their own, but they always looked real pretty. Mr. Brackett worked in the back of the store and Mama would point to a piece of meat in the glass case. He'd take the chunk of meat back to his huge cutting board table and cut it exactly right. Then he'd wrap it up in a big square of white paper which he'd tape shut. Sometimes, he'd let me put the tape on. Mama would leave me to bring the meat and while Mr. Brackett was cutting it, I'd flip through the comic books on the wall to see what Superman was up to. Near the cash register was a large glass case that held all sorts of goodies -- tiny packs of needles and thread, BC powders, baskets full of buttons. On the counter was a round cake of yellow rat cheese. We always bought my Daddy a big hunk of rat cheese because it was one of his favorite things. But on this day, Mama wasn't in a mood to let me wander around and look at things. She had a list and she was checking it off as we went. She sent me down one aisle to get some White Lily flour while she went down another aisle to get the eggs. Then I had to go back because she couldn't remember how much sugar she had. By the time we even said hello to Mrs. Brackett, we had two baskets filled with groceries. I hoped my brothers were back from the ball game by the time we got home or I knew who was going to get to carry all those bags in the house. I didn't even bother to ask for a fireball when we got to the checkout counter. I pretty much knew my chances weren't too good when I realized Mama wasn't buying Daddy any cheese. Daddy and the boys were pulling into the carport right as we drove in. I quickly grabbed the sacks that held the bread and said, "Mama, I'll take these bags in and go change back into my play clothes. Then I'll come help you unload them." I smiled over my shoulders at my brothers. They were always bragging about how strong they were and wanting to arm wrestle; let them tote all those heavy sacks inside. I waited until the screen door quit slamming and all the groceries were inside before showing my face in the kitchen. I knew the routine and started separating the party food from the regular food. Then I carried the party stuff into the dining room where Mama arranged it on the table according to what she was going to make. This was when it was important not to talk out loud cause Mama was organizing her mind. She put everything in order of what we'd do first, according to how long it could set out without going bad and according to when the oven would be free. I put the bags of bread toward the back cause I knew the sandwiches would be the last thing we'd make. They had to be fresh or people would talk about Mama as if she were Mrs. Cantrell who always brought stale pimento cheeses sandwiches to the Homecoming dinner down at the church. Mama said Mrs. Cantrell made them up the night before and let them set out all night with just a little wax paper over them so that, of course, they were stale. She'd told me not to be pert when I'd asked her why she didn't tell Mrs. Cantrell to wrap them better. Pert didn't sound as bad as harlot because Mama smiled when she said it. That let me know that she liked it when nobody ate any pimento cheese sandwiches but all of her own dishes came home empty. After supper, Mama said she might as well get the pie crusts out of the way and by the time I went to bed, she already had dozens of teeny tiny tart crusts baked and ready to fill. The next morning, I was eating breakfast when the phone rang. It was Mrs. Cantrell and I handed the phone to Mama. I didn't pay much attention to the conversation -- see, cartoons were on -- until I heard her say, real hard-like, "Well, if you can't help it, you can't help it. No, don't worry. I'll manage." Then she slammed the phone so hard it fell off the table. She stood there looking at it without picking it up and I knew she was mad. She turned and poured herself a cup of coffee and took it out the back door. I watched her out the picture window. She was walking up and down in the garden, real slow and I knew she was trying to cool off before she said something she'd regret. I pretty much knew what that something might be, too. After a little while, she straightened up and headed back to the house. I hurriedly plopped down in front of the TV so she wouldn't know I'd been watching how mad she was. She came back inside, smiled at me and said in a real calm voice, "Well, it looks like it's you and me, kid. Mrs. Cantrell can't help us cook today. She has a migraine headache and can't even stand up. So I think I'll be needing your help." I was pretty good at cornbread and black-eyed peas, but she'd never let me help with party food before and I thought it'd be fun to help. I was wrong. You just mix up cornbread and stick it in the oven and you only have to worry about keeping water on the peas. With party food, there's a lot of hard work that goes on. You have to be careful so it tastes good and looks pretty at the same time. The kitchen got all heated up even though Mama put the fan in the window to try to cool it off. There's not much you can do sitting down, so we spent all day standing up, slicing and dicing. I learned a lot that day. Mama explained her thinking to me as we went, how you have to figure out what to cook first and how to make room in the refrigerator for the cold stuff. We made a million tiny meatballs to simmer in the sweet sauce. We cut up a truckload of pecans to fill the little pastries. I squeezed lemons for the lemon bars until my hands were numb while Mama grated cheese for the cheese straws and sausage biscuits. The kitchen table was filled with sheet pans -- cookies cooling, cookies waiting to go in the oven. We could've put Nabisco out of business with all our cookies. In between the cooking, I polished the big silver trays and Mama polished Grandma's old tea service. Mama called Daddy at work and told him to go by the Dairy Queen and pick us up some supper on his way home because we'd been cooking all day and didn't have anything to eat. I was so tired, I almost fell asleep over my chili dog and Mama sent me to bed early. When I got up the next morning, Mama had put back on the same clothes she'd worn the day before to ice the last batch of petite fours. They were gorgeous, with a tiny rose on each individual piece. Mama must have been tired because she let me cut the crusts off the bread for the sandwiches. We finished along about lunchtime, but neither one of us was hungry. In fact, I didn't think I'd ever want to eat again. Mama arranged the trays real pretty and put the containers with the extra food into boxes. She didn't trust the boys to help load the car, so she and I packed everything into the trunk and the back seat. She told me that she didn't care what Patsy said about having children at an adult party, that I had helped and I deserved to see how everybody enjoyed my hard work. She told me to put on my Easter dress, that I was going to the party. I was ready before Mama was, so when the phone rang I answered it. It was Mrs. Cantrell. She told me to tell Mama to pick up some ice on the way over to her house. She hung up without giving me a chance to tell her we might not have room in the car. But Mama just shrugged her shoulders and sighed when I gave her the message. We stopped at Mr. Moore's little country store to get the ice. Mama told me I'd better come in to help her carry the bags of ice, so I did. I had stopped to look at the comic books when I heard somebody greet my mother and say, "Oh, are you on your way over to the shower Patsy's throwing for Mary Beth?" It was old Mrs. Mandeville. She's okay for an old lady even though she does wear funny hats. Mama told her she had just stopped to pick up some ice before taking the food over there. Mrs. Mandeville said, "Oh, that's so nice of you to help out like that. I'm sure Patsy appreciates it. She'll be in a stew this morning, I imagine, what with everything she has to do." My mother said, "Yes, well, you know, I'm helping her give the shower." There was silence. Mrs. Mandeville got a funny look on her face. She scrunched up her mouth and looked at my mother for a minute. Then she gave her head a little shake and said so quietly I almost couldn't hear her, "Did you know that your name was not on the invitation? The invitation implied that Patsy was giving the baby shower by herself." There was more silence. Mrs. Mandeville and my mother just stood there looking at each other. Then my mother nodded and smiled. "I see." Mrs. Mandeville nodded at my mother again and turned to leave the store, patting me on the shoulder as she passed by. We put the ice bags on the floorboard and on the seat up front with me. It was cold but not as cold as my mother's face. She cranked the car and we headed toward Mrs. Cantrell's house. We passed Mrs. Cantrell's house. We drove straight on through town, all the way out to the old folks home down by the river where Daddy's Aunt Mabel had moved last summer. He'd told Mama it was the only way to get her to stop buying things from door-to-door salesmen and she seemed to like it there just fine. They had a lunchroom as big as my school's and Mama and I carried our food into it and threw a tea party for all the little old ladies. It was a very nice tea party. Much nicer than the tea party at Mrs. Cantrell's house that afternoon where eight-nine garden club ladies drank ice water and ate soda crackers.
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