Suburban Renewal by Pamela Morsi Page B

classes off the ground. Mike probably invited her as a prospective member of the Chamber.”
    â€œOh, for heaven’s sake, Corrie.” Mom’s voice was exasperated. “An empty dance floor with mirrors on the wall is not a gym. And she’s not even providing classes for children. She says it’s for women only.”
    I never really liked Cherry Dale, but at this point felt called upon to defend her. She’d rented the old Hay Biscuit Dance Hall and was opening a place right on the highway. The sign read Cherry Dale’s Pepxercise.
    â€œMom, it is a business,” I told her. “These fitness centers are springing up everywhere. They have them in Tulsa.”
    Mom made a haughty, derisive remark.
    â€œI can’t imagine that any woman in her right mind would want to waste her time going to some smelly gym, when she can get just as much exercise shopping on Main Street.”
    â€œMommy.”
    Lauren walked into the kitchen and tugged on my shirt, distracting me from my conversation.
    â€œMommy, I have to show you something.”
    â€œJust a second,” I told my mother. “Lauren, I’ve told you a dozen times, when I’m on the phone it is the same as if I were speaking to someone in the room. Interrupting is very bad manners. When you see that I’m on the phone, you should wait until I’m finished andthen you can politely tell me anything you have to tell me.”
    â€œBut Mommy…”
    â€œYou do understand what I’m saying?”
    â€œYes, Mommy, but…”
    â€œI know that it’s hard and that you’re impatient, but you have to learn to wait your turn.”
    She stood then, waiting, though not so patiently, standing on one foot and then the other. I deliberately stalled her for about a minute. “Excuse me, Mom,” I said into the receiver. “Lauren wants to tell me something.”
    I smiled at her proudly. She was very bright, and growing up to be so sweet and well behaved.
    â€œWhat do you want to tell me, Lauren?” I asked.
    â€œI think Mrs. Neider’s dead, Mommy,” she said. “She’s still sitting in her chair, but she looks really dead.”
    I hung up on my mother without another word. I am certain that Lauren had never seen a dead body in her life, but she knew what she was talking about. Mrs. Neider was sitting in her rocking chair, eyes closed as if she were asleep. She was not asleep.
    Nate, for once, had overcome his shyness and was struggling to climb into her lap.
    I jerked him away and into my arms and led Lauren back into the kitchen. I picked up the phone and called Dr. Kotsopoulos. I didn’t know that doctors don’t even make house calls for the dead. The office told me to call her family and the funeral home.
    We got through the next few days with only a fair amount of difficulty. Sam took off work the day of the funeral. Our intent was to go to the service to show respect for the dear old lady. The family asked us not to.
    â€œSomebody has to stay here and guard this house,” her daughter, Betty, told us. “Since everybody knows the family will be at the church and the cemetery, no telling who will show up here to try to take something out of the house.”
    So Sam and I honored Mrs. Neider by sitting in her house while she was eulogized and buried.
    â€œYou didn’t miss much,” Sam’s grandmother assured us later. “It wasn’t the best funeral. Her niece, Doris, did the music and it was very gloomy.”
    Since Gram had been to more funerals than most, we took her word for it.
    Our immediate concern was for a place to live. The family made it eminently clear that we needed to vacate the premises as quickly as possible. In fact, the eldest son, Howard, suggested that we should begin paying rent retroactively. He said it in such a way that it sounded as if he thought we had been living off the kindness of an old woman, completely