Chapter 37
THIRTY-SEVEN
“I was much too selfish to have children of my own,
and just wise enough to realize it.”
—excerpt from the unpublished memoir,
Darling, I Must Say by Gloria Hayes
“Prison, Iris, really?” Gloria said in her most theatrical voice when I found her in the community room working on a puzzle. She threw an arm across her forehead for added drama, shaking the table in the process and thus causing several puzzle pieces to fall to the ground.
“How do you already know?” I began picking up the fallen pieces. After Abe came home, I’d hightailed to Shady Cove to see Gloria, thinking she might let me lick my wounds. I don’t know why I thought that.
“Oh, it’s everywhere,” Mary said at the table next to ours. No conversation was private in this place. “My daughter called me and told me. She lives in Oklahoma.”
“It wasn’t prison,” I muttered from under the table. “It was the sober tank.” I hopped up from the floor. “I hit a man, and he deserved it.”
“Well, he was a man. Of course he deserved it.” Mary smiled sweetly. She might be wearing a t-shirt with a photo of all her kids and grandkids, but if it were ever discovered there was a body buried under her prized rosebushes, I would believe it.
“It sounds exciting. I shall call you my little jailbird,” Gloria said.
“Why do I come here again?” I plopped down and put my elbows on the table.
“Because you need someone to keep you grounded.” She patted my cheek. “That is me.”
“Ah, yes, you’re the most grounded person I know.” This was said ironically, considering she was wearing a zebra-striped caftan. In her ears were bright red earrings so large, they brushed her shoulders.
“And wise.”
“And wise,” I repeated.
“And beautiful.” She patted her hair. The gesture gave me a flash of what Gloria had been like when she was my age—with a megawatt smile that hid a sharp tongue. She would have been unstoppable.
“And beautiful. And might I add humble, too.”
“If you must.” She stood, her caftan floating around her like a striped cloud. “I’m done with this puzzle. Shall we walk?”
“That would be my cue to leave. Bye, Mary.”
“Bye, sweetie. And good job fighting the patriarchy.”
I grinned. “Thanks.”
It took twenty minutes to get back to her room after stopping to talk to every resident in the place.
Gloria couldn’t stand to pass someone without starting a conversation.
It was funny, really, that we were friends, seeing as how she was a social butterfly, and I’d rather sit in a corner by myself.
“You know, you could be a tiny bit more friendly,” Gloria said when we entered her room.
“I am friendly.”
She tsked and settled herself into her throne chair. “I’ve said it before. You need a life and by that, I do not mean a life of crime.”
“I like my life.” I lied.
“Yes, darling, what’s not to love? Single, directionless, living with your mother, spending your free time with all those old people, present company excluded. It’s the stuff of dreams.”
“You are so good for my ego, bestie.” I plopped on her bed and stretched out, resting my head on my stacked hands.
Gloria glared at me, one elegantly sculpted eyebrow raised.
(The eyebrows were drawn on but done so in a very classy way.) I made a big deal about toeing off my shoes. They dropped to the floor with a thud.
“Thank you.” She sniffed. “I do sometimes wonder if you were raised by animals.”
“I wish. Animals don’t hold stupid pageants.”
“What in the world are you talking about?”
I pulled a pillow over my face and mumbled a reply.
“I cannot understand a word you’re saying.”
With a sigh, I pulled the pillow off. “I entered the Miss Two Harts pageant.”
Perhaps it was her theatrical training but Gloria was very good at keeping her emotions in check. Still I could not miss her look of astonishment. “But why?”
“Spite. Revenge. Proving them all wrong.”
“I am speechless.”
I frowned. “It is really that hard to picture me in a pageant?”
“In a word, yes.”
I sat up and crossed my arms. “Hallie and I are doing it together. I know I won’t win and I don’t want to but I am out to prove I could if I wanted to.”
“So, you plan to make a mockery of the whole thing?”
“No. I’m just not playing to win.”
“I am disappointed. If it’s worth competing, it’s worth competing to win.” She snapped her fingers. “That was a good one. Write that one down.”
I dutifully followed directions. “Are you ever going to write this memoir?”
“I’ll get around to it someday. I have time.”
I gave her pointed look. “Do I need to remind you that you’re eighty-se—”
“No, you do not. You’re very insolent today. It is not a good look on you.” Quite suddenly, she studied me with narrowed eyes. “I think this pageant will be good for you. For example, you can work on that terrible posture and finally wear something besides all that ghastly black.”
“Wow. Okay. Tell me how you really feel.” I covered my face with my hands. “This is going to be a disaster.”
“Darling.” She leaned forward and patted my knee. “It’s just a small local pageant.”
“Yeah, that just means everyone I’ve ever known will be in attendance.”
“And? One of my favorite things about you is that you don’t care what other people think of you at all. Why start now?”
That was the thing, wasn’t it? I did care what people thought, but I’d learned to play it off as though I didn’t. Never give them that kind of power of you.
“You know, I was Miss Two Harts when I was eighteen. I was very good. I had the loveliest dress that my mother made for me. I still have it somewhere.”
“I had no idea. You never want to talk about your life before New York.” I pointed at the collage of photos that covered most of one of the walls. “You have all these pictures and not one of them is from your childhood.”
“Yes, well, life began when I got to New York. Everything else was just the prologue.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“No, I don’t. I’ve always kept the two parts separate. The Gloria before New York and the Gloria after.”
“Who do you like better?” I asked.
“Neither and both. It would be too hard to pick. Two very different people.”
“Sounds complicated.”
Gloria frowned ever so slightly (because she did not want to encourage wrinkles). “We’re all very simple creatures when you get down to it. But we do like to make things complicated.”
Her eyes drifted to the collection of framed photos hanging over her television. There was a black-and-white wedding photo of her and her husband, a few of the two of them together in some part of the world or another—they’d loved to travel—and one of her in full Rockette mode that I loved.
She seemed to wilt before my eyes, sagging in the chair with a tired sigh. “I suppose I’ve been thinking about those years more these days. Because of George…”
George had passed away two weeks ago, and it had a noticeable effect on Gloria. “I know you miss him.”
“I do. Very much.” Blinking away tears, she looked away, almost embarrassed.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered.
“It’s all part of life,” she said, her voice weary. “I’ve lost my parents, my sister, my husband, and more friends than I care to count.”
I touched the back of her hand. “You have me.”
After a quiet moment, she gathered herself together and flashed a brilliant smile. “Now, let’s get back to this pageant. We have so much to do to get you ready.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Did you just make me your project?”
“Obviously. Now, stand up and turn around.” Her voice cracked with authority. “I need to see exactly what I’m working with here. Set your expectations now. I’m very good, but even I am not a miracle worker.”