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A few weeks before Bill shot himself, he and Mina painted their house pink. I do not mean pink as in, say, rose- tinted or even flamingo- hued. I'm talking a thick, pukey Pepto Bismol pink that reminds you of velvet headboards in trailer- houses or those tacky Arabs out in California with anatomically correct statues in their yards. I just did not know how those poor old mimosa blossoms would compete, and I told Roberta so.
"Lord, I know," she said. We were out on our Sunday drive over to Brownfield to eat at Green's. Roberta likes their chicken fingers, and I always enjoy the fried shrimp, even though you know good and well it's frozen.
"This dang drought! Poor old farmers," said Roberta, changing the subject. She doesn't like to talk ugly about people, but I do not think it's ugly to state a simple fact. Roberta was hunched over the leather- covered wheel of her brand new powder- blue Cadillac, going 40 so we could see the pathetic white freckles of cotton. It looked like the wiry tufts of hair on a mangy yard- dog.
About that time some kids in one of those souped- up pickups came up behind us, honking to beat all. They probably thought we were just a couple of silver- haired old farts, but they weren't the ones in the brand new Cadillac, and besides, there wasn't a car coming for miles so I couldn't see why they didn't just pass us. Roberta slowed way down and veered toward the shoulder. Rude and mean even by today's standards, they came so close to Roberta's Cadillac when they passed that the truck, a big old huffy red thing with a screaming engine like a freight train, snapped off her driver's- side rear- view mirror. Roberta sucked in her breath and slowed down even more, then pulled as far right as she could and stopped.
"Oh Lord, Lucille!" Roberta had changed into her tan pantsuit after church, and now she reminded me of a little sparrow, all quivery, her hands fluttering like wings. I hadn't seen her so rattled since Les died in '71, of a heart attack while drinking ice tea on their patio. She had called me first, and when I got there Les was resting his head on the wrought- iron table like a napper, except he was dead, and Roberta was flitting back and forth between him and the big wooden planter where she grows her garlic. They gave her a Valium when the ambulance came.
"Roberta, now look," I said, pointing at the retreating red dot in the road. "They're gone! Let's just go on to Green's and get us a bite to eat, then tomorrow we'll get your mirror fixed. Let's not let some silly old kids ruin our dinner!"
"You're right, Lucille." Roberta fished around in her purse and rubbed on some Revlon Berryshine lipstick, which we both like, then drove straight on into Brownfield like nobody's business.
Life does throw you some funny twists, and that accident was one. Bill must have been watching when Roberta pulled into her driveway later, because in no time he was over there offering to replace her mirror for the cost of parts. It surprised her no end, and me too.
He and Mina had moved here three years earlier from Oklahoma, right after they put Mina's mother in that new Alzheimer's home at the Tech Medical Center up in Lubbock. Bill had not exchanged more than 50 words with anybody, that I knew of. Mina was no Miss Gregarious herself, but she did join our bridge club when Roberta went over there with a homemade pound cake and invited her. Frankly I was not thrilled about this, because at that time we usually made eight, even when somebody was in the hospital or off visiting their kids. I could tell Pauline was not happy about it either; she kept glancing at Mina that first Friday night and pushing her glasses up her nose like there was no tomorrow.
We did get used to Mina, but I will also say that when somebody made a joke, she would chuckle in a nervous way that made her chin pointy, and she always sat right on the edge of her chair with her back so straight I was afraid she'd topple over. The only time she peeked outside her shell, we were playing at my house, and she noticed the photo of me and Buck in San Blas. Buck is holding a deepsea fishing rod and has a tumor the size of a walnut growing behind his right eye, though of course we did not know it at the time. We're standing in front of a beach-hut cafe, squinting at the sun. As the years pass I am less and less able to recognize the skinny blond woman as myself.
"I remember that cafe," Mina said. "Bill and I were there in the early sixties!" I was serving coffee and almost dropped the pot. Mina sure seemed lively. Pauline cocked an ear and raised her eyebrows. She was intrigued, all right.
"I just loved the jungle tour," Mina was saying. "When were y'all there?"
"'54," I said. "Six, eight months before Buck died."
I could see this last bit made Mina uncomfortable.
"Oh, it's all right, Mina honey," I said, trying to get her back in a good mood. "It's been a long time. Anyway, we loved it! One night we wound up at a Mexican wedding party in somebody's yard."
Mina just smiled and nodded like always. I would really have enjoyed that other Mina. "Buck wanted us to dance with all those Mexicans," I said, trying again. "Gangly old thing! They'd strung up some white Christmas lights and Buck kept brushing them with his head, he was so tall."
Mina didn't say anything, so I went on to serve the other table.
"Well, Lucille, did y'all dance?" It was Pauline, Miss Curiosity herself.
"No, Pauline, we did not," I said. "I thought it would be intruding on the party." That very next day we spent six hours fishing with a scrappy little guide named Jose. We all thought Buck's headache was from the sun.
The Saturday night after Bill replaced Roberta's rear- view mirror, he and Mina had her over to supper. The way Roberta acted you'd have thought it was a date with Clark Gable. She made me come to Loretta's to help pick out a new pantsuit, and we found a nice navy with a yellow and navy scarf. I think Roberta was just happy to be doing something social besides playing bridge or eating out with me or Pauline.
At Green's the next day, she told me all about her big night. We were both enthralled by what Mina had fixed, a baked chicken with a coconut- and- peanut crust.
"Whew!" Roberta said. "I ate until I thought I'd pop. Then along came Mina with a lime pie, and we ate some more!" She laughed and fanned her face at the memory.
"How were Bill and Mina to be with?" I said. This topic interested me the most.
"You know, that was the funniest thing," she said. "Mina seemed like her normal self-- shy, you know, but so sweet." Roberta is the one who is sweet, if you ask me. "What surprised me was Bill. Lucille, he was downright gabby."
"What on earth!"
"Yes," continued Roberta. "Right after I got there he went and got four or five big old scrapbooks, and he showed me every single one. Even during dinner!"
I imagined poor Roberta looking at scrapbook after scrapbook of family pictures, including ones of Bill and Mina's peculiar daughter Gail, the old maid that teaches some strange topic I can never remember at a university up in Iowa or Idaho. But no, the pictures were of places in the Caribbean sea, according to Roberta.
"Beautiful! Beaches, palm trees, women in bikinis, little black kids playing in the sand, thatched- roof huts, platters of bright- colored food, you name it," she said. "Bill's been cutting them out of magazines ever since they spent a week there fifteen years ago.
"I said to him, I said, 'Bill, you must just love that place.' And you know what? He said, 'As soon as Mina's mother is all settled, we're going to move there and build us a house!' Lucille, I tell you my mouth flew open. Something odd, though--I smiled over at Mina, and she was just looking at the table, you know? She seemed embarrassed.
"I don't personally find it embarrassing, I think it's wonderful." Roberta would think that. "So I said to Mina, I said, 'Mina, that's just wonderful! You all add an extra room for me, now, you hear?' That got a grin out of Mina, poor thing. And she did say they would build me a room!"
Satisfied at the memory of having put another human being at ease, Roberta popped a bite of chicken strip in her mouth and sat eating, an activity she enjoys more than anybody I have ever known. How she manages to stay so petite is beyond me. Some sunlight snuck through the wood blinds and threw a bright white ribbon across her plate. Now that Roberta and I are pushing into our eighties, I find myself adding something when I say my prayers at night, which is that I die before Roberta does. It is selfish, I know.
So it was a shock when we got word one Friday, soon afterwards, that Bill was dead, and a double shock when Albert Treadaway called Roberta from the sheriff's office to tell her he had shot himself in the head. I had already started making Mina a cheese- grits casserole when Roberta came over with this second bit of news.
"How could the good Lord have let this happen, Lucille?"
"Roberta, I do not know. Bill must have been sick, and we just didn't know it!"
When we took the cheese- grits over to Bill and Mina's, there was a rental car out front-- the daughter, who had flown into Lubbock and driven down, and who answered the doorbell.
"I'm sorry, and we do thank you for the food, but Mother just wants to be alone today," she said. Gail is no Rita Hayworth, but even when she's been crying she is not the homeliest person either. "We're packing up some stuff to go to a motel in Lubbock," she continued. "Mother really doesn't want to be in the house right now."
"Bless your hearts," said Roberta. "We'll watch tomorrow's paper for the arrangements. And if there is anything we can do, you please call!"
"And give Mina our love," I added, saying the right thing for once.
That Sunday there was a short memorial service in the funeral home chapel, then we all got a few minutes to hug Mina and Gail before they left for good. Mina moved back to Oklahoma and got her mother up there too. In a Christmas card to Roberta, she said Gail had scattered Bill's ashes on the Caribbean island of St. Croix. Roberta, who always finds out everything without trying to, also heard from Dr. Cole that Bill had stopped taking some medicine he needed for his moods. The house sold in a few months, and the new owners painted it a nice pale gray.
I do think about Bill from time to time. I imagine him sitting on the wide terrace of a bright pink house, surrounded by bougainvillea and the smell and sound of the ocean. What's funny is, sometimes it's Buck up there on the terrace, and I find myself wondering if he ever said something to me like, "Lucille, I sure would love to see Paris." But I just can't remember.
