Fannie Flagg - I Still Dream About You

“Don’t be silly. Does Oprah Winfrey look masculine?”

“She’s skinny now…”

“Well… when she was heavier…”

“No…”

“Okay, then.”

They drove in silence a little while longer, until Maggie asked, “How are you doing with your Overeaters Anonymous meetings? Are you still going?”

“Yes, I love the meetings… it’s the not eating I don’t like.” Brenda let out a big sigh. “Maggie, if I tell you something, do you swear not to tell Robbie?”

“Of course.”

“I’m so mad at myself, I could just scream.”

“Why?”

“I had another slip. Doughnuts.”

“Oh… well, honey, just try to forget it and move on. That’s all you can do.”

Brenda smiled. “You’re right… that’s all we can do…”

Brenda then pulled down the visor and looked at herself in the mirror. “Do you really think I have cute teeth?”

“Yes.”

Brenda smiled. “I’ll tell you what Maggie, talking to you always cheers me up!”

Oh, dear. This clearly was not the moment. Maggie decided she would try another time.

A T BRENDA’S LAST OVEREATERS ANONYMOUS MEETING, THE LEADER had said to the group, “The problem is not what you are eating, but what’s eating you !” And unlike a lot of the other gals in the group, Brenda knew exactly what had been eating at her for years.

When Hazel had hired her, it had still been a pretty rare thing: a black real estate agent in an all-white firm. But for Brenda, growing up when and where she had, she had always been an experiment of some kind. Now, after so many years of having to deal with the “race issue” day in and day out, she was tired. Tired of everybody bobbing and weaving all around the subject, never saying what they really thought, herself included. And tired of always having to be careful about not acting “too white” around her own people or “too black” around white people.

When Brenda had been growing up, the issues had been the big, overt, and glaring oversights of voting rights and segregated neighborhoods, water fountains, schools, and bathrooms. But now it was the small, everyday subtleties that were so wearing. She always felt it when white people were walking on eggshells around her, nervous about saying something that might offend her. She just wished people would act normal. When she had been in college up north, all those obsequious professors fawning over her had made her very uncomfortable.

She would have loved to have had a vacation from race, even for a day. But it was always there. And lately, the way the news media kept pitting one side against the other, she didn’t see it going away anytime soon. Everybody seemed to have an agenda where race was concerned. Some to keep people stirred up, others to pretend that it didn’t matter.

That’s why she liked Maggie. Maggie had no hidden agenda; she was nice to everyone. Sometimes too nice and too trusting for her own good. Maggie once spent six weeks driving an old lady all over town, showing her every property available within a twenty-mile radius, only to find out later that the woman was just lonely and liked to go for rides. Ethel said that if the woman hadn’t died, Maggie would still be driving her around town to this day, and it was probably true. Maggie had taken care of her parents for years, and when they’d both had to be put in a nursing home, she had visited them twice a day, seven days a week, and never complained. Brenda admired her, but if she herself couldn’t complain about her family, life wouldn’t be worth living.

Maggie also did nice things for people and never told you about it, but when Brenda did something nice, she wanted people to know about it. Brenda guessed that was why she had always been so drawn to politics and had decided she was going to run for mayor. A politician had to toot his own horn. How else were you going to get votes?

The only college professor Brenda knew for sure had really liked her was her senior year English professor. While working on a project together, they had fallen in love and had an affair, and it had ended badly and broken her heart. Anybody who won her heart now would have to be pretty special. She had tried out a few, but no luck so far. And she figured that, as mayor, she’d be much better off not having a husband at all. From what she had seen, the husbands had turned out to be more of a hindrance than a help. She would have been much better off with a wife. They stand by you, no matter what. Even Ethel had said, she would be better off just getting herself a cat. “They clean up after themselves and mind their own business.”

T HAT AFTERNOON, MAGGIE WAS GOING TO TAKE A TEST RUN DOWN by the river to make sure that on the third, there would be no last-minute surprises; you never knew when or where they might be doing roadwork, and if there were any detours she wanted to know about them now. She took the precaution of wearing dark glasses and a scarf. She didn’t want to risk the chance of someone seeing her driving on the river road and remembering it later. She now wished she had maintained a lower profile around town, but after Hazel died, she had appeared quite a few times on Good Morning Alabama , offering home-selling tips; now younger people who might not have recognized her as an ex-Miss Alabama sometimes recognized her as the Real Estate Lady. She realized it was just another irony of life; first you want to be famous and in the end, it turns around and bites you.

Fortunately, today she knew exactly where she was going. It was to a certain spot where her father had always gone fishing, and if it still was as she remembered, it was the perfect spot for her purpose. As she drove, she looked over at her latest checklist, on the seat next to her.

River-Run Items

1. Wraparound weights

2. Glue

3. Raft and paddle

4. Raft instructions

5. Reading glasses

6. Cheap watch

She had everything with her today, except for the watch. She wasn’t about to jump in the river wearing her good gold watch, but she would need a watch to time the glue. She would go to the drugstore next week and buy a Timex, and on the morning of the third, she would put her good watch in an envelope for Lupe, her housekeeper, along with her money for the week. She wanted to say a proper goodbye to Lupe (hard to do when you don’t speak Guatemalan), but she figured a nice gold watch says, “I appreciate you” in any language.

One of the reasons she had addressed the note “To Whom It May Concern,” and not to Lupe, was that Lupe could neither read nor speak English. Nevertheless, she was always anxious to please. No matter what you asked her to do, she smiled and said, “Yes,” the one word she knew. Unfortunately, she was not a very good housekeeper. She had chipped or broken almost every dish Maggie owned and Maggie wound up having to do most of the cleaning herself, but she was so sweet, Maggie didn’t have the heart to fire her.

As Maggie drove along, she gradually realized she had not been out this way for years, and she was surprised to see quite a few of the new Jim Walter manufactured homes scattered here and there; other than that, though, the area was still pretty rural. A few barns still had faded SEE ROCK CITY advertisements painted on their roofs. A good half hour later, about ten minutes past the old Raiford Fishing Camp, she found the little turnoff spot she was looking for and slowly drove her car down the winding red dirt road and parked in the small clearing. It was completely hidden from the highway up above, so she got out and changed her shoes. Thankfully, although it had grown over with weeds, she was able to find the little path that led down to the river. It was a good three-minute walk, longer than she remembered, but the good news was that this part of the river was still pretty deserted, and the few beer cans scattered around the bank were old and rusty. She didn’t think anybody drank Schlitz or Pabst Blue Ribbon anymore.