“Hang on, Mama. I’m driving over Buzzard Bridge.”
The spot earned its name because so many wrecks had occurred that the buzzards hung out, waiting for carnage.
“Mace, be careful!”
I edged to the right and slowed a bit, as the other car blew past me with just a foot or so to spare. There was still enough twilight, and we were close enough, that I could see the driver’s eyes. They were wide with fear under the brim of his Walt Disney World cap. Maybe he’d ratchet down the gas pedal on that rental car when he came to the next narrow crossing.
“Okay,” I began, before I was immediately distracted again.
This time, it was a scene in a thicket of trees alongside the road. A tall blonde stood beside a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. Black, of course. A big, fancy car was parked right next to the bike. The car gleamed, golden, under my headlights. A heavy-set man with a cigar in his mouth leaned casually against the driver’s side door. The car was a very distinctive Cadillac.
“Well, that was weird,” I muttered as I sped past.
“What’s weird, Mace? Would you please speak up? It’s really hard to hear you on that cello-phone.”
“I just saw Sal, pulled way off on the shoulder along 98. He was talking to that same blond woman from the bar.”
Mama gasped. Apparently she had no trouble hearing me now.
“Well, you have to turn around and go back there! Find out what Sal’s doing out in the woods with some gorgeous young gal.”
I looked in the rearview mirror. There was nothing but dark road behind me. “They’re not exactly in the woods, Mama.”
“Woods, highway, whatever. Turn around right now, Mace.”
I hesitated. Mama already had talked me into a god-awful, ruffled mess for Saturday, wearing a most likely horrifying hairdo, and carrying the most ridiculous parasol known to womankind. It’d cost me, but I decided this request was going to be my line in the sand.
“No, Mama. I will not turn around. It’s been a long day. I’m tired, and I’m hungry. You can ask Sal yourself why he was out here along the road with her.”
I didn’t add that the thought of any kind of confrontation with Ms. Sunglasses made me nervous. She was strange; she was just as big as me; and that helmet looked plenty heavy.
“Well!” Mama’s exhale was full of indignation. “I’d certainly do it for you, Mace.”
Did I dare go there? Ah, what the hell.
“I know, Mama. And that’s the difference between us.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’d never want you to do it for me. You’re acting like you’re in junior high, sending another girl over to the lunch table to find out if some boy still likes you. For God’s sake, you’re a grown woman! You’re going to marry the man on Saturday.”
There was a long pause on the phone. “This connection must be real bad. I thought I just heard you disrespecting your mama.”
“No disrespect intended. I’m just saying you should talk to Sal. I’m not going to be your go-between.”
“Fine!”
“Good.”
I was gaining on a slow-moving truck, hauling a noisy cargo. An awful smell wafted toward me on the night air.
“Whew! I’m coming up on a truck full of hogs and a double center line, Mama. I need to get off the phone and pay attention so I can pass this old boy who’s driving as soon as I get the chance.”
There was silence on the other end.
“Mama? Did you hear me?”
“What if Sal is like No. 2, Mace? What if he’s like him?” Her voice had turned small, shaky.
I felt a rush of sympathy. Number 2 was by far the worst of Mama’s ex-husbands. He’d started cheating within days of their marriage, taking up with a cocktail waitress from the casino hotel where they honeymooned in Las Vegas. After that, there’d been a long and humiliating procession of Other Women.
I eased off the gas a bit, letting the smelly truck gain some distance. “Mama, Sal is a good man.”
“Maybe too good to be true.”
“Now, you know that’s not right. Sal is nothing like No. 2. Just talk to him. I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation.”
She sighed, a sound heavy with remembered pain. “I could never go through it again, Mace.”
“I know, Mama. You’re just having pre-wedding jitters, that’s all. Everything is going to be all right, I know it. You and Sal are going to be as happy as Rhett Butler and Scarlett O’Hara.”
There was a long pause from Mama’s end.
“You didn’t watch that movie I loaned you, did you, honey?”
“No. Why?”
“Because Rhett walks out on Scarlett in the end.”
A claw-like hand landed on my right shoulder. Maddie shrieked from the backseat of Pam’s VW. “Watch where you’re going, Mace! You nearly knocked over my manatee mailbox.”
“Sorry,” I muttered.
Mama had sounded so upset, I decided to round up my sisters and pay a visit for moral support. We’d just picked up Maddie, and we were enroute to Mama’s now. Marty was in the front, like always, because she’s prone to carsickness. Maddie was in the back seat because, well, who ever heard of a front-seat driver?
Grinning at me, Marty leaned over to extract Maddie’s fingernails from my shoulder.
“You know, Mace …” My big sister settled back into the seat, but her tone said she wasn’t ready to let an opportunity for further criticism pass her by. “God gave us rearview mirrors for a reason.”
I glanced at Marty and rolled my eyes. She giggled.
“Actually, Maddie, some racecar driver in 1911 at the first Indianapolis 500 gave us rearview mirrors,” I said.
Maddie harrumphed. “Nobody likes a know-it-all, Mace. And God surely put the idea into that driver’s head.”
“You’re probably right, Maddie. But just so you know, I missed that ugly mailbox of yours by a mile.”
Maddie was about to start another round when Marty said, “Sisters, enough! Now that we’re all here, Mace, what were you going to tell us about Sal?”
I filled them in on seeing him with Ms. Sunglasses, and how Mama had some kind of flashback to the bad old days with Husband No. 2. We were used to the Mama Drama, but we also knew the awful toll that second marriage had taken on her.
“It’s post-traumatic stress,” Maddie said with certainty.
“Thank you, Dr. Laura,” I said.
“I mean it, Mace. She’s facing the same set of circumstances—getting married. Now, she’s reliving the anguish of getting hitched to the wrong man, and wondering if she’s making the same mistake again.”
“So why didn’t she go through that with Nos. 3 and 4?” Marty asked.
“The same stimuli never presented themselves,” Maddie said. “It’s as simple as that.”
Along with her college French, Maddie also took a few psychology courses. Who’s the know-it-all now?
“Sounds like a bunch of hooey to me, Maddie,” I said. “Mama’s probably just over-reacting, as usual.”
Marty twisted a long strand of hair around her finger. “How bad did she sound?”
“Hard to tell on the cell, Marty. That’s why I wanted us to go see her. Y’all know how rash Mama can be. I just don’t want her to do something crazy.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Maddie said.
“Remember when she got into a fistfight at a party with that one woman No. 2 was running around with?” I asked my sisters.