Embrace Me (27 page)

“You don't like
her
either?”

“I love her! She just makes me face things about my life I'd rather not think about, that's all. Kinda like you, if I think about it.”

I push the bag of potatoes, Yukon gold, the best as far as I'm concerned, in his direction and ask if he'll scrub them. Of course he will. He's Rick, a really nice, really stretchy guy who deserves to have a crush on someone other than me.

After sliding the potatoes, swimming in cheese and cream, into the oven, I hear Lella's voice call down from her room. “Valentine!”

I practically wound myself tripping up the steps, I run so fast.

“Yeah, Lell?”

“Aunt Dahlia went over to the square to get us some Sunday morning donuts.”

Lella's hair is teased around her head and I imagine beady eyes opening up, a tail whipping forward, and the whole affair jumping off her head to return to its native woodland setting.

She frowns. “It's awful, isn't it?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, well. Aunt Dahlia makes up for it in so many other ways, doesn't she?”

I just nod and say, “Ham, peas, and scalloped potatoes for dinner after Blaze gets home from the Laundromat.”

It sounds pathetic, this little offering of meat with nitrates, peas from who knows where, and potatoes that grew to maturity in common dirt.

“Can you take me to the bathroom, Valentine? I wouldn't ask, but—”

“Sure, I will. Just because Aunt Dahlia's here doesn't mean I don't want to help.”

“You still do? Really? I thought you'd be glad for the break.”

In response, I lift her into my arms.

Lella thanks me over and over again, more profusely than ever before. Because plainly, it must not really be my job anymore.

I settle her back onto her bed.

She sighs. “I don't know, Valentine. Is this the life we want for good?”

“Oh, Lella, it's the only life I have.”

Heading back to my room, I look up at the icon I bought on the Internet.

“And I was so happy that night on the lake,” I tell John, or at least who I think is John because he's right next to Jesus and doesn't look evil like the other guy, who must be Judas, right? “But this Aunt Dahlia business is driving me crazy.”

I'd hung the picture over my CD player. I push the button only to hear Frank Sinatra croon my song.

Bartholomew would approve.

Yesterday Bindy and Mindy left, having been hired by a bigger show. We had a going-away cake. After they were driven away. Ha! Ha!

Sitting on my bed, listening to a young Nat King Cole version of “Embraceable You,” I love how he rounds his vowels ever so slightly, an almost imperceptible slur on the final consonants of the words. The burbling jazz guitar, electric and warm, trips along beside him, and I follow behind. I somehow feel the blackness in my heart lighten to more of a slate gray. Charmaine sits on the end of the bed drinking a Diet Coke.

“I didn't ask for this shake-up in life any more than I asked to be born to Trician Boyer.”

She's proclaimed herself my counselor, having counseled hundreds of people on the phone lines for
Port of Peace
.

“She was a piece of work, wasn't she?” Charmaine.

“I hate my mother, and Drew Parrish taught me how. Before I met him I merely felt deep annoyance paired with a crippled affection. But those two brought out the worst in each other. He couldn't stand her.”

“Did you ever love her?”

“In the days before my voice flowered. Well, maybe it wasn't an overwhelming love where I felt safe and pedestaled like you do for your kids, Charmaine. But she fed me, pushed the swing at the park, and never picked me up late from day care. Yeah, I guess I loved her then. But the realization of my talent lit some sort of fire in her and she stepped out of her saleswoman pumps and into those spikier heeled, pointiertoed shoes of a manager of an artist. All in my best interest, of course.”

“I doubt that.”

“I often wondered if she just liked having good excuses to go shopping.”

“Why was she like that, Val? I could never figure her out.”

I pontificate. In the course of her lifetime, my mother dealt with disappointment at almost every step. Her parents divorced when she was fifteen. She couldn't afford to go to a top design school so she wound up at the local state university, and even there her design portfolio was rejected after her sophomore year. She ended up graduating with a degree in textile management, accepting a sales position at Fieldcrest. When she met my father, he talked big, big, big—someday he'd be the CFO of a Fortune 500 company. He started doing taxes on the side a year after they married, dreams of power cars and club sandwiches at the country club dancing in circles around Mother's pretty little head. Another H & R Block? Oh, but they could diversify, surely. Perhaps consult. And Dad knew a thing or two about computers. But he ended up hanging out his own CPA shingle, fully planning to “keep it small and manageable.”

No wonder he sells beads now.

Undaunted, Mother eagerly signed up for Mary Kay, buying feminine business suits for the day she'd be some kind of regional manager, get off the sales trail because, naturally, she'd sign up so many people beneath her she could become a motivational speaker, encouraging others that with enough vision and courage they, too, could be where she was today.

“Dad literally wailed—which should tell you something—that she was spending twice as much money on clothes and lunches than what she was bringing in.”

I put on my Trician Boyer voice. “‘You've got to spend money to make money, Wally. You might want to consider bringing in another accountant to make up the difference.' ”

Charmaine shakes her head. “I'll be honest. I never liked her.

She was horrible to me behind your back. I just tried to steer as clear as I could. What about your dad, honey?”

“I can't believe I let you talk me into talking about all this stuff! I thought I was quite clear on the dock.”

“I have that way about me.” She hands me a piece of chocolate and I continue the tale.

“My father, however, wasn't motivated by money. He was motivated by order and balance, and Mother's idea of business had nothing to do with either of those. It simply didn't make sense that he should step up his responsibilities due to her lack of common sense.

“No extra accountant, Trician. You're throwing the monkey-wrench into this situation, not me.

“Well, Mother supposed, it must be the product that kept her from moving forward. Yes, of course. The product.”

“Oh, you don't have to say more.” Charmaine waves a hand. “If you're around the church long enough, you soon find out there are as many direct-marketing companies as there are views on the end times, once-saved-always-saved, and baptism!”

“Well, Mother sure sampled her fair share. I'm surprised our church didn't kick her out because she tried most of her recruitment on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights. After Mary Kay she tried Avon, Amway, Bee Alive, and ended up with a ‘Lose Weight Now Ask Me How' bumper sticker on the back of her old Buick, a car Dad said he'd be darned he'd replace so she could rack up the mileage on something new and put them further in the hole.

“And then one day in the eighth grade I sang ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas' in the holiday concert at school. I bowed my head after the final note of the soundtrack faded, the auditorium burst into applause, and I was awarded a standing ovation.

“If Trician Boyer couldn't sell cosmetics, cleaning supplies, vitamins, or weight loss products, by gum, she could sell her own daughter.

“She got me into pageants, talent contests, tryouts for regional musical theater and TV commercials, model searches, and special music at churches, weddings, social gatherings, and fairs all over the state. I did it all. I became popular with the locals because I was pretty but still approachable.”

“I can't fault you there.” Charmaine. “You were the real deal. At least inside.”

“Right. Mother never realized this, but I did. I watched the entertainers who endured throughout the years and not only endured but were much-loved and well-respected, and not a one could be called anything but believable. The fact that audiences liked me for me kept me with Mother's program. It was her drive, coupled with my aura, that made for the perfect combination. We would have been just fine if Drew Parrish hadn't entered into the picture.”

“Oh, honey. He was hurting like the rest of us.”

“You'd say something like that, Charmaine. I think he was a snake. But I can't say he fooled me completely. I realized his ambition, I knew he played to some script he'd bought only heaven knew where. I simply had the misfortune to fall in love with someone who, I realize looking back, hadn't the capacity to fall in love with anyone. Not really.”

“I thought you loved him. I could see that a mile away.”

“My bad.”

“I should have stepped in more than I did. I'm just terrible at confrontation. And then, well, Valentine, I thought you were the driving force behind a lot of it.”

“I was the allowing force. I don't know how much of that stuff I would have come up with on my own. Did you ever confront them about it?”

“I confronted Drew, but he blamed Trician. He really could have cared less about your looks. He just wanted you to get that Nashville contract.”

I shrug. “Who knows who was the bigger criminal? Maybe they fed off each other's worst parts.”

“Probably. Things were different in my day. It's so much worse today. Girls having so much surgery beforehand just to try and get their foot in the door. It was the final round of surgery when I knew I had done the wrong thing in not stepping in more than I did.” She sets down her drink and takes my hand. “Valentine, I'm so sorry.” Tears fill her hazel eyes. “I should have said something. I've wanted to ask your forgiveness for years now.”

“It wasn't your fault, Charmaine. You were the only one who ever shot straight with me. You were really who you claimed to be.”

“I let you down. Please, Daisy.”

“I forgive you, Charmaine. I never held anything against you in the first place.”

“I love you, Valentine.”

“I know.” I squeeze her and break the embrace. “Are you sure about Drew? He really wasn't the driving force? Trician was?”

“I'm almost 100 percent positive.”

“Does it matter though? He still let Trician do what she did, all so I'd get a contract and his show would do well.”

“As much as I saw the good in that man, that line of reasoning is something I can't fault you on.”

After she leaves, I point above my CD player to Andrew, standing there so nicely with his halo. “Curse that Charmaine Hopewell for dragging this all out again. I've carved out my life the way I like it, the only way I can live it without doing something like burning myself with Drano again.”