LaVyrle Spencer: Small Town Girl

"Can't have pecan pie without coffee."

"I really don't drink coffee much anymore, Momma… and I really shouldn't eat the pie either."

Mary glanced over her shoulder. Her exuberance faded and she slowly shut off the water. The baffled look had entered her eyes again, that of one generation struggling to understand the next. "Oh… well, then… shoot…" She glanced down dubiously at the half-filled pot, then turned on the tap and resumed filling it. "I'll go ahead and cook some for myself then."

"Do you have any fruit, Mom?" Tess went to the refrigerator and opened the door.

"Fruit?" Mary asked, as if her daughter had asked for patй de foie gras.

"I eat a lot of fruit now and I could sure use a piece. I haven't eaten since breakfast."

"I've got some canned peaches." Mary opened a lower cupboard door and attempted to lean over stiffly.

"Yeah, that'll be great, but I can get 'em. Here, why don't you sit down and let me?"

"It's no better when I sit. I'll do it. Why don't you get your things out of the car and take them upstairs?" Mary had found the peaches and was taking a can opener from a drawer. Tess reached into the drawer and covered her mother's hand.

" 'Cause I came home to take care of you, not the other way around. Now here, you give me that."

The peaches were packed in heavy syrup and had a rubbery skin surrounding mushy insides, but Tess took a fork and began eating them straight from the can, wandering around the kitchen, glancing at some notes that were pinned on a small bulletin board by the phone. The bulletin board itself had an ugly frame of molded plastic made to resemble spilled green peas. It held school pictures of her nieces and nephews, a reminder to check the long-distance bill to see if they'd charged a wrong number, and some grocery cou-pons cut out of magazines. Tide-twenty-five cents off. Once again Tess wondered what her mother did with the money she sent her. It was irritating that Mary would continue to use twenty-five-cent-off coupons when it was so damned unnecessary!

Mary opened the refrigerator and said, "I made your favorite hot dish-hamburger and Tater Tots. I suppose I could put it in the oven now but"-she checked the wall clock-"it's only four o'clock and it'll take an hour to cook. Five o'clock is too early to eat, so maybe we ought to wait a while and-"

"The peaches are fine for now, Momma. I know you don't usually eat till six."

She watched the concern fade from Mary's face once she was reassured the danger of altering the supper hour had passed. Tater Tot hot dish had been Tess's favorite when she was twelve years old. These days, beef was a once-a-week meat, and deep-fried Tater Tots never passed her lips. Not when she had a collection of custom-made concert clothes in size seven that cost between eight and ten thousand dollars apiece. She took the can of peaches to the kitchen table and sat down. In the middle of the table a potted plant sat on the worst-looking plastic doily Tess had ever seen. It, like Mary's shirt, had been white once. It was now as yellow and curled as an old fish scale.

Mary poured herself a cup of coffee and sat, too, lowering herself gingerly to the chrome-legged chair with a cracked vinyl seat that was hidden beneath a tie-on cushion of brown-and-orange floral. She glanced at Tess's oversized white T-shirt that was silk-screened with four faces and a logo.

"What's that, then, 'Southern Smoke'?" she asked.

Tess glanced down at her chest. "Oh, that's the name of a band I know. They've been trying to break out, but so far it hasn't happened. I've been sort of dating one of the guitar players. This one… see?" Tess spread the shirt and pointed to a bearded face.

Mary squinted. "What's his name?"

"Burt Sheer."

"Burt Sheer, huh? How long you been seein' him?"

"Oh, just a couple of months."

"Is it serious?"

"In this business?" Tess laughed. "It better not be."

"Why not?"

"With his schedule on the road, plus me gone all over America singing a hundred and fifty concerts a year? Plus I'm cutting this new album right now that's taking an enormous amount of time, and doing promotions whenever and wherever the label thinks I should… well, anyway, I've seen Burt exactly four times. And a couple of those times I had to argue with Jack because he thought I should go home and get some sleep instead of going to hear Burt's band at the Stockyard after I finished in the studio at ten P.M."

"What's the Stockyard?"

"A restaurant and club we go to."

"And who's Jack again?"

"Jack Greaves… my record producer."

"Oh, that's right." Tess watched the gleam of hope fade from her mother's eyes and knew Mary really did not see. She would never accept the fact that her youngest daughter had chosen a career over marriage and children. To a consummate mother like Mary McPhail that was tantamount to squandering your life.

"Which reminds me-I really should call Jack. He's laying down some harmony tracks on one of my new songs and I need to talk to him about it. It'll just take me a minute."

She called, using her credit card, from the wall phone at the end of the kitchen cabinets and reached Jack at Wild-wood Studio, where she knew he'd be working.

"Hi, Jack!"

"Mac! Good to hear from you. You at your mother's?"

"Yes, sir. Got here safe and sound."

"How's she doing?"

"Middling."

"Well, now, you tell her I hope it all goes well for her."

"Thanks, I will. Hey, I listened to 'Tarnished Gold' all the way down, and the harmony on the word 'mistaken' still bothers me. I think it's got to be an E-flat instead of an E. When it becomes a minor it gets an edge that puts added pathos on the word itself." She sang the phrase, gesturing with her hand as if directing the quartet of canisters on the kitchen cupboard to sing along. "Know what I mean, Jack?… Can you get Carla back in there to record it again?… She still having trouble with her voice?… Well, ask her, will you?… Thanks, Jack, then FedEx it to me as soon as you've got it, but don't spend a lot of time mixing it till I've heard the new harmony, okay? You've got my mother's phone number and address, right? I won't be here tomorrow-tomorrow's the surgery-but I'll call you from the hospital. Sure. Thanks, Jack. 'Bye."

When she'd hung up, her mother wore an astonished expression. "You'd record something again just because of a single word?"

"It's done all the time. Sometimes we record an entire harmony track and never use it at all. Last week Jack had a concert violinist in the studio at my insistence, 'cause a violin's got an entirely different sound from a fiddle and I thought that this one song should have a violin solo in one spot where-"

The phone rang, interrupting, and Mary began to push herself up. She winced and Tess said, "I'll get it. Momma. I'm right here." Tess reached for the wall phone and answered, "Hello?"

"Oh… you're there." It was her sister Judy, with little warmth in her voice. "I was just calling to make sure."

"I'm here. Got in about a half an hour ago."

"You drove, I hear."

"How'd you hear?"

"People around town saw your license plates."

Tess turned her back on Mary and said more quietly, "I thought I should have my own car while I'm here. Four weeks is-" She stopped herself short: her mother could hear quite plainly.

Judy said it for her. "A long time… I know. I'm the one who took care of her last time, remember?"

For several seconds silent animosity crackled along the phone line while the two sisters relived the conversation in which Judy had ordered her younger sister home.

Finally Judy asked, "How's she feeling today? She had to go over to the hospital to have a pre-op check and go through some kind of little explanation and tour thing. I suppose it tired her out."