Are you kidding? I havent had a new bra since the last time I was pregnant, and now Im in this nursing bra thats barely holding its own. Ive got saggy boobies, so nothing looks like it fits right.
I shook my head. Charlie, youre crazy, I said. I just dont see it. Youve got three kids and you look more put-together than I do. And I dont even have the saggy booby thing going on. Ive got the no booby thing, remember?
Believe it. This is the same nursing bra I used on the last go round, so its looking pretty sad.
I smiled. Well, your underwear might be sad, but I seriously doubt that Mike is, I said wickedly.
O-delle! she scolded, sounding slightly scandalized. I could almost hear the blush in her voice. But there was also the slightest tinge of delight.
Its true, and you know it, Charlotte. Dont try to be all sweet and innocent preachers wife with me. I laughed. I know better than that. I dont care what the sorry state of your underwear might be, Mike cant keep his hands off you. And why not? Hes a man of God, and you and I both know that God is a huge fan of sex. Remember that sermon Mike preached on Song of Solomon? Some racy stuff right there, I sniggered oh-so-maturely. It seemed so easy to be silly when we were talking about something else other than me. Plus, I happen to know for a fact that eighty percent of the women in your congregation would trade places with you in a heartbeat, and the other twenty percent are playing for the other team and just havent fessed up to it yet.
Stop it! Youre being terrible! she managed through giggles.
Mommy, is Daddy tickling you? I heard from somewhere on the other end.
Oh, is that what theyre calling it now? I snickered.
No, sweetie, Mamas just talking on the phone with Aunt Dellie, and she told Mama a joke, she called through the laughter.
Aunt Dellie! Hi, Aunt Dellie! When can you come play? I heard my niece screech in excitement.
Yes, Aunt Dellie, when can you come play? Charlie echoed.
Oh, no you dont, I said. Dont bring your sweet little angels into this to throw me off topic, I commanded.
Never, my sister agreed.
I mean it, Charlie. Youre like the Proverbs 31 woman and Heidi Klum all in one. I think half the women on the planet hate you just on principle.
Yeah, right.
You do occasionally look in the mirror, right?
Only when I have to, she sighed.
No pity here, babe. Nu-uh. If I didnt love you so much, Id hate you. But youre far too awesome for that. And that husband of yours is definitely not hard to look at. I paused, feeling a little ding in my head go off. Ooh, theres gotta be an article there. Below the Bible Belt: Hot Southern Preachers and the Women Who Stoke the Fires of their Pulpits. I tittered.
Shame on you! Does Mama know you talk like that?
Where do you think I get it? You can add us both to your prayer list, I teased. Or tell that church gossip of yours MayBeth Andrews. Shell have an email chain out faster than you can blink.
Now, now, Charlie tsked. MayBeth means well.
Of course she does, bless her heart, I said sarcastically, invoking the phrase Miss MayBeth loved to insert into every possible moment of conversation. Now there was a drinking game in the makingMayBeth said, Bless her heart! Everybody drink!
She does. I think its just misplaced good intentions. You know how her mother is, and thats where I think she gets it. The apple doesnt fall far from the tree, as they say.
Uh-huh. Well, maybe MayBeth could use some new panties of her own, I grumbled.
Bless her heart, Charlie said, dissolving into laughter.
The panties exploding in a riot of color from their various drawers at the lingerie store were nothing if not a bold statement in celebration of the right to decorate your derriere. And various other lady bits, of course. And since I hadnt been to the lingerie store for more than a year, I felt a bit like a little kid in a candy store as I rifled through the multitudinous styles and fabrics that came in my size.
Throngs of thongs and billions of bikinis, heaps of hipsters It made the eyes cross. If I was going to be honest, I wanted them all. I wanted to gorge myself on them and not have to choose. I wanted to lay claim to every pair that even hinted at impracticality and march my soon-to-be-spectacular butt up to the black-clad ladies behind the cashiers counter and plunk down my pile of goodies.
Not so much for the panties themselves, but for what they represented. All through my mess of a marriage, my cache of fun, flirty panties had gone either unappreciated or scoffed ata reaction that I had definitely not expected. Naive perhaps, but I had thought that the man I married would take one look at my lovely little lacies and light up with glee. Instead, I got raised eyebrows or shrugs, followed by a dismissive, Theyre a pointless waste of money.
So I had done the logical thing, the economic thing.
The defeated thing.
I had taken stock of all of my brand-spanking-new-with tags but un-returnable pretties and posted them for sale on Craigslist and eBay, netting me far less money than they were worth, perhaps; but soothing my sense of having made an unnecessary and extremely unwise splurge on something so silly as panties.
Which, consequently, now left me with a huge hole in my underwear drawernot only number-wise, but in regards to variety and style. Everything was either black, white, or nude. And now, after so many wears, all of it had seen far better days. Hence my mothers concern at the TSA agents catching a glimpse of the sad state of affairs if they so happened to rifle my drawers. Not to mention Charlies support of my bucket list and her insistence that I make a concerted effort to replace the contents of my lingerie drawer with something a little more racy.
We were all, in a way, trying to resuscitate me, one pair of panties at a time.
One bucket-listed goal at a time.
These are perfect, Dellie! Charlie squealed, gleefully holding up a pair of extremely pink, extremely sparkly pair of bikinis that were covered in sequins.
They were loud.
They were proud.
They were the most impractical, most sparkly pair of panties I had ever seen.
And they were going to be mine.
Oooh, Charlie, I breathed, taking the substantially sequined slip of fabric in my hands, stroking the sparkles reverently. Theyre beautiful.
And youre going to get them, even if I have to drag you to the register by your hair, she insisted.
Theyre so pretty, I said again, still not raising my voice above a whisper.
And youre getting them, she repeated. Right?
I flicked the price tag. Good God, theyre expensive. I cant get these, Charlie. Its ridiculous. Theyre so far from practical its insane, I said, feeling my desire for the panties and my resolve at working on my project slipping under the surface of my budget consciousness.
Charlie narrowed her blue eyes at me. Odelle Pearl, she said, her previously radiant glow of triumph now replaced by a glower. Do they cover your ass?
You said ass, I squeaked, eyeing my eighteen-month-old nephew as he peeked out from the baby backpack currently strapped to her back.
Zekes not going to rat us out, so stop trying to distract me while you come up with excuses about why you really shouldnt get them. You. Are. Getting. Them, she growled.
But theyretheyre I stammered.
They cover everything that needs to be covered, Dellie. They just do it in a spectacularly sparkly way, which makes them absolutely, insanely perfect. And therefore, they are necessary.
I looked down at the panties in my hand. They were so pretty. I could imagine myself wearing them. Feeling pretty, feeling strong. Feeling special and confident, even though no one would know I was wearing them.
They more than simply panties. They were a symbol of freedom. A symbol of hope.
And therefore, just as my sister had so wisely declarednecessary.
Those last days flew by as I finished packing, still trying to kick myself into the proper headspace for this whole adventure.
That was how I was trying oh-so-determinedly to think of it.
An adventure. A search to find a new meor even to reconnect with the self I had let myself lose. Once upon a time, people had told me I sparkled, and I wanted more than anything to be that girlor rather, that womanagain. I wanted to be inspiring to people, to leave them basking in the afterimage brightness of my glow. I wanted to approach life with abandon and optimism, rather than fear.
As I strapped myself into my seat on my US Airways flight, a small smile crept across my lips. I may have been dressed in a pair of plain-Jane jeans that needed replacing and a well-cut but unremarkable white button-down, but underneath it all, there was a pair of panties with enough shine to guide a plane back to the runway.
Remember who you are, Dellie, I thought, settling in as the flight attendant instructed us on the finer points of surviving a crash landing. Remember who you are and let people see you sparkle.
Chapter Six
There had always been a can of White Rain hairspray in the cabinet, the kind with the shiny green cap and green writing on its silver surface. I remembered the smell of Noxzema, the mentholated white cream in the blue plastic jar, before they went all designer and started making everything from lotions to blackhead-zapping treatments and exfoliating scrubs. Back then, you had one choice: the no-nonsense blue jar with a screw-on lid. No pumps, no frills. Just that unmistakable blue jar. I would look for that jar on every visit, making sure that it was still there in the center cabinet of her tri-paneled medicine cabinet. Some part of me was always looking for reassurance that nothing had changed within the safe little realm of my grandparents home. That while we were getting older and everything else was different, there were certain things that were still sacred. So there, in Grammies mirrored medicine cabinet, was a thick balm of reassurance. It gave me endless pleasure to unscrew the lid and breathe in its familiar scent, a scent I smelled nowhere else but at my grandmothers house, the scent of maturity and skin that was being pampered by a deeper clean than my own little face was used to getting. The smell of being a Big Girl, all grown up.
Depending on the time of day, there might be a set of partials soaking in a glass by the sink, the bright pink of artificial gums looking almost lurid as they waited for their next wearing. Multiple tubes of lipstick were always scattered in various locationssome on the faux marble counter to the left-hand side of the sink; some in the little medicine cabinet, on the shelves next to the Gold Bond powder. Again, those were the simpler days, before they branched out and explored all kinds of different formulations of their stock product. Gold Bond was Gold Bond, and it came in a harvest gold plastic canister with a red sifter top.
But back to the lipsticks. They were all invariably Revlon or Cover Girl or Avon, but all of them bore close resemblance to one another in shadea mauvy rose shade that seemed to get pinker and pinker as time wore on and she got older. Grammie wore Cover Girl blush and pressed powderanother one of those smells that, for some reason, made a heady, heavy imprint on my brain. Lever 2000 or Tone were her soaps of choice, resting in the soap dish tile above the sink, settling with authority into a little suction-cupped soap-saver mat. Sometimes she had Pert Plus shampoo on the ledge of the fiberglass tub-and-shower combo, sometimes it was Pantene. And more often than not, there were foil packets of Alberto VO5 Hot Oil Treatment somewhere in that medicine cabinet, buried amidst all the other clutter along the white plastic shelves of its interior.
These were some of the sights and smells of Grammies bathroom, that special lair of lady-dom where us girls prepared every morning for the day and every evening for bed. This was the one with a high, handicapped toilet rather than the standard bowl, where you could peek out the shoulder-height window to see who was on the deck, who might be ringing the bell at the back door or was thomping away after letting the old screen door slam shut behind them. These were the sights and smells that were decidedly absent for me, as I stood staring and studying from the doorway. They made me feel her loss even more acutely, those personal little things that were no longer there.
Would the shock have been less if theyd still been there, unused and collecting the dust of time and neglect? I shook my head and tried to blink back the tears that I felt burning my eyes, my nose, my throat. She wasnt coming back. I would never get to bury my head in the warm pillowy softness of her frame. She had always disparagingly called herself fatbut she wasnt fat. She was Grammie, and grammies were supposed to be warm and powdery and soft. She was fluffy. She represented the safety of innocence and youth and fun summers of being carefree.
I looked around at the hollowness of the bathroom.
What was this place going to be like, now that she was no longer here?
I sighed, and it seemed to echo in the small room. I would have almost a month to find out.
Today was day one of my trip.
Today was day one of the Break from Routine listing on my bucket list.
Today was the beginning of my goal to Reconnect With Family, people like my grandfather, as well as the cousins and uncles and aunts who were part of the thread of my extended familypeople Id lost touch with somewhere along the way as my world shrank to be smaller and smaller.
Today was Day One, and I had a lot of work to do.
Hey, Dellie, Grandpa said half an hour later, looking up from the paper. He was ensconced in his recliner in the den, his pale bare feet propped up on the footrest, the lamp next to him casting a dim glow of light in the brown-ness of the den.
It was, undeniably, a very brown room. Brown plush carpeting, brown paneling on the walls, brown furniture. Brown, brown, brown. But it had always been that way, in various shades of the same hue, different forms and fabrics coming and going through the years, but always brown. It was a fact that was immutable, and one that comforted me beyond words.
Hi, I said, smiling at the familiar sight of him there, in that chair, paper in hand. What are you watching?