Mall, or a check to someone’s grandchild, or a new book of fiction for a discouraged young writer. Nothing big or flashy or spectacular.
Old women all over Mulberry bragged about the seventy-fifth birthday or the golden anniversary (even though their spouses were long dead) remembrance and call they had gotten from Lena McPherson.
“And it wasn’t no
dry card, neither,”
the old folks would say as they waved the accompanying check or gift certificate around under the noses of their neighbors.
Sister was the first one to call the practice “hush mouth.” But Lena had taken the expression on as her own. Several times a month, about once a week, she would sit down to her desk at her own house and do her hush-mouth duties. Ordering items on the phone from catalogs, writing what she considered little pieces of checks that sheknew might save someone’s life, calling florists and tracking down economy sizes of obscure curative lotions, ointments and plasters that her older friends and customers swore by.
Whenever Sister was running around her home in New Orleans doing a million things at once, taking care of this son or that son while functioning as the sole caregiver to her aging motherin-law even though her husband had brothers and sisters right in the city, making sure her entire household ran smoothly while preparing for her thrice-weekly lectures as well as the anthropology majors’ trip, she would compare herself to her busy, joy-giving, gift-giving friend.
“Girl, I’m so tired. I had to ’pull a Lena’ yesterday,” she’d tell her secretary as she dragged into her office just before an early morning class.
Even on nights—and there were plenty of them—when Lena was too tired to even plunge into the invigorating cool waves of her indoor swimming pool, or too behind in her paperwork to sit in her sauna and relax, she always found the energy and the time to go through her phone messages and see if anyone really needed her that night.
Most of the folks calling were people she had known all her life. There were no other folks on earth—now that her family was gone—that she cared more about.
“Lena McPherson? Shoot, I couldn’a made it lots of times if it hadn’a been for her.”
“Hell, me and my family wouldn’t have no roof over our heads if it wasn’t for Lena McPherson.”
“Lord, I couldn’a got my mama buried proper if it wasn’t for Lena.”
“Shoot, Lena McPherson the hand I fan with.”
She was beginning to feel about the same way her ousted customers did. She was missing the familiar smells, the sweet sweet sweet sexiness of an old R&B tune like “At Last” sung by Etta James on the jukebox, the loud sudden raucousness of a tipsy couple’s laughter.
Lena had no sooner thought of the song than the jukebox made a whirring noise and Etta James began singing.
At last, my love has come along
My lonely days are over
And life is like a song …
Umm, Lena said to herself, now,
that’s
my song for real!
Dancing by herself through the makeshift aisles of the deserted Place reminded her of all that—the music, the laughter, the flirting and fighting, the love, the comfort, the sanctuary—all that The Place offered. And she determined again to tell Mr. Jackson that very morning that he and his crew needed to get cracking on this job and get out of there so she and Gloria could get The Place back open.
As she danced her way along the grill’s bar through the stacks of lumber and copper wiring, on to and through the piles of dusty, moldy Sheetrock, Lena tried to ignore the increasingly strong musky odor and the breeze on her neck inside the building where there was no source for a breeze.
This was shaping up to be the best time and the most relaxation she had had in a long time. Lena found so few places and opportunities to enjoy herself.
First thing that morning, she had seen a cat’s eye in the drain of her big shower wink, wink, winking at her, and had wondered just what
Old women all over Mulberry bragged about the seventy-fifth birthday or the golden anniversary (even though their spouses were long dead) remembrance and call they had gotten from Lena McPherson.
“And it wasn’t no
dry card, neither,”
the old folks would say as they waved the accompanying check or gift certificate around under the noses of their neighbors.
Sister was the first one to call the practice “hush mouth.” But Lena had taken the expression on as her own. Several times a month, about once a week, she would sit down to her desk at her own house and do her hush-mouth duties. Ordering items on the phone from catalogs, writing what she considered little pieces of checks that sheknew might save someone’s life, calling florists and tracking down economy sizes of obscure curative lotions, ointments and plasters that her older friends and customers swore by.
Whenever Sister was running around her home in New Orleans doing a million things at once, taking care of this son or that son while functioning as the sole caregiver to her aging motherin-law even though her husband had brothers and sisters right in the city, making sure her entire household ran smoothly while preparing for her thrice-weekly lectures as well as the anthropology majors’ trip, she would compare herself to her busy, joy-giving, gift-giving friend.
“Girl, I’m so tired. I had to ’pull a Lena’ yesterday,” she’d tell her secretary as she dragged into her office just before an early morning class.
Even on nights—and there were plenty of them—when Lena was too tired to even plunge into the invigorating cool waves of her indoor swimming pool, or too behind in her paperwork to sit in her sauna and relax, she always found the energy and the time to go through her phone messages and see if anyone really needed her that night.
Most of the folks calling were people she had known all her life. There were no other folks on earth—now that her family was gone—that she cared more about.
“Lena McPherson? Shoot, I couldn’a made it lots of times if it hadn’a been for her.”
“Hell, me and my family wouldn’t have no roof over our heads if it wasn’t for Lena McPherson.”
“Lord, I couldn’a got my mama buried proper if it wasn’t for Lena.”
“Shoot, Lena McPherson the hand I fan with.”
She was beginning to feel about the same way her ousted customers did. She was missing the familiar smells, the sweet sweet sweet sexiness of an old R&B tune like “At Last” sung by Etta James on the jukebox, the loud sudden raucousness of a tipsy couple’s laughter.
Lena had no sooner thought of the song than the jukebox made a whirring noise and Etta James began singing.
At last, my love has come along
My lonely days are over
And life is like a song …
Umm, Lena said to herself, now,
that’s
my song for real!
Dancing by herself through the makeshift aisles of the deserted Place reminded her of all that—the music, the laughter, the flirting and fighting, the love, the comfort, the sanctuary—all that The Place offered. And she determined again to tell Mr. Jackson that very morning that he and his crew needed to get cracking on this job and get out of there so she and Gloria could get The Place back open.
As she danced her way along the grill’s bar through the stacks of lumber and copper wiring, on to and through the piles of dusty, moldy Sheetrock, Lena tried to ignore the increasingly strong musky odor and the breeze on her neck inside the building where there was no source for a breeze.
This was shaping up to be the best time and the most relaxation she had had in a long time. Lena found so few places and opportunities to enjoy herself.
First thing that morning, she had seen a cat’s eye in the drain of her big shower wink, wink, winking at her, and had wondered just what
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