My Mother’s Yard

My Mother’s Yard

My mother was a very creative person, in the sense of creating Things. She created food dishes like her mother and her mother before her did, by taking a few basics, and adding or subtracting ingredients until she had the dish tasting just like she want it to. She was intuitively savvy enough about sewing and pattern making that she could see a dress in a store window, and come home and modify an old Butterick pattern in newspaper and whip up a dress to fit herself or me or my sister for a fraction of the price of the store-bought dress. But her supreme creation was her yard. The lady had a vermillion thumb.

In 1949 when we moved to the new house on 13th Street, the 60x 110 ft. lot was absolutely bare ground, except for the small house and the large oak tree on one front corner. The sand which comprised the original earth had been covered over by the builder with a load of marl and a load of topsoil, spread very thin. Immediately my mother got a load of chicken manure from her father’s chicken farm and spread it on the front and back yard and raked it in. I don’t remember how she got it home to Fort Pierce from Orlando, or how long the yard smelled to high heaven. But soon the little sprigs of Centipede grass that she planted began to spread, and from there it was no stopping her.

In the thirty years she lived there, she covered every square inch with something—near the house she had hibiscus, all colors, double and single, and crotons, variegated and plain. Under the oak tree were hundreds of bromeliads and her prize azeleas, nursed along in the too-hot climate by her daily watering and the thick mulches of oak leaves. In the back yard she had had the good fortune of being at the right spot at the right time when the guy running for County Commissioner had come by with a pick-up truck filled with young citrus fruit trees, which he was selling for a dollar apiece. She bought four, two orange and two grapefruit trees, which either she or my father planted. Once in a while Daddy would bring home fish heads that she would bury around the fruit trees, like the Indians showed to the Puritans. Over the years she added a lime tree and an avocado tree.

In one corner of the back yard there was a date palm, and in the other corner a cabbage palm. Along the side edge of the lot she had hedges of Crepe Myrtle, pyracanthus, ornamental hot peppers, and oleander. One year the whole south side of the house was filled with poinsettias.

Having grown up on farms and having had to work in the fields, she wasn’t partial to growing vegetables or even cut flowers. Her Dad always had a truck garden that gave us lots of fresh vegetables and her Mother always grew flowers to cut for the house or to decorate her church. But Mama grew shrubbery and perennials, and fruit trees.

And all with just a couple of watering hoses, a sprinkler, a rake, a shovel, a trowel, a wheelbarrow, a lawn mower and a pair of gloves. She never bought fertilizer. She mulched with oak leaves and semi-composted clippings. She figured out what the minimum charge for water was per month, and how many gallons that represented, and read the water meter frequently so that she could use up every gallon of water on her yard that she was going to have to pay for anyway. She got up early in the morning in the summer so she could be out watering before it got too hot. She always had cuttings rooting in water in mayonnaise jars next to the back steps. And she did all this in housedresses. She never wore shorts or even slacks, and I’m sure she never even owned a pair of jeans.

When they moved to the next house, she had already developed rheumatoid arthritis and she never was able to work in that yard in the way she had in her first house. But my sister and I both still keep crotons going in pots from the plants Mama took with her from the 13th street house to the one near US 1. It seems as much of a legacy as a piece of jewelry, and much more symbolic of Mama.

45 RPM

45 RPM
by Gwendie Roberts

45 rpm. What a revolution (pun intended) in record playing. My sister got a plastic red with green lid record player for Christmas the year that 45’s hit the market. For the next couple of years she and I both saved every penny we could from our 50 cents a week allowances and any babysitting money we could get to buy one 45 record each Saturday at Frinks—the only music store in town and the only place to buy 45’s. Our problem was that we had only enough money together each week to buy one record, which meant we had to agree on what to get. A simple solution would have been to let her make the pick one week and me the next, but that never occurred to us. So we spent the whole week making suggestions and arguing about the choice. But that just made the music that much sweeter. We wound up with a whole bunch of Elvis Pressley—Heartbreak Hotel, Blue Suede Shoes. Her favorite, I forget the singer, was A White Sport Coat and a Pink Carnation (she was the romantic one) and I loved Splish, Splash, I Was Taking a Bath, a much more uptempo tune—sort of a prelude to Billy Preston. Anyhow, we’d close our bedroom door, put on our white bobby sox, push our bedside rug under the bed, and dance on the hardwood floor until either my mother or my father’s patience would finally snap and we’d hear through the door “Turn that thing off and come to supper.”

It’s funny to remember now how disapproving my mother was of some of the song lyrics. Funny because compared to today’s lyrics they sounded like nursery rhymes. Also funny because I never had any idea what the words to the songs were. Ninety-nine percent of my listening was to the music—the melody, the beat, the arrangement. For many of those 1950’s songs I’ve only recently learned the words as they are played on “Golden Oldie” stations. Although now most of them are too old to be Golden Oldies. They’re more like Platinum Oldies.

I don’t think there are many moments in my life that I’ve enjoyed more than those spent shining Mama’s wood floors with our socks, listening to our collection of 45’s.

The Water Fountain

The Water Fountain

When I was in fifth grade I pushed Katie Thomas’ face into the bubbler on the water fountain at recess while she was bent over getting a drink, and it made the fever blister on her lip bleed, and I did it ‘cause she butted in line and then she told on me to Mrs. Tipton, our teacher, and I lied and I said I didn’t do it and Mrs. Tipton believed me ‘cause I was a good student and always very well behaved in class except I talked too much to my neighbors and although I hate liers I wasn’t even sorry ‘cause for once Katie Thomas got what she deserved.

Lunch

Lunch

He took me to lunch, once, at Marshall Field’s Department Store in Chicago. He, being from Chicago, was giving me a local treat, while the other conference goers were more likely eating at hotels or tourists spots. He was a professional friend, meaning I saw him a couple of times every year at professional meetings, and so I knew a lot about his public self, but not much about his private self.

We studied the menu.

“I’ve never cheated on my wife,” he said, “and I never will.”

I looked up at that.

“But if I did, you would be the one. “

I wasn’t sure what the proper response would be.

“You’re such a classy gal,” he went on. “You’ve always turned me on.”

“Well, OK then,” I said, and turned back to the menu.

And when he died, too young, I wrote to his wife, “I want you to know how much he loved you and your girls. He told everybody so.”

The Guitar

The Guitar

I’m old enough to remember when guitars became the instrument of choice for college kids. Before that, I think it was the piano. But for folk singers and rock groups, suddenly everyone played or wished they played the guitar. Coffeehouses were popular and held “open mike” nights, where amateur songwriters who had a pawn shop guitar and knew three chords would sing war protest songs or gentle songs about life and love and happiness and sadness.

Now we’ve evolved through amplified guitars and dissonance pedals to electronic guitars at ear-splitting levels and songs about bitches and “ho’s” and guns and incest and drugs and the po-lice. How did this happen? And what could possibly be next? Maybe, as in the ‘50’s there’ll be another music revolution and a different instrument will become the 21st century version of the guitar.

Maybe the flute. No, you can’t sing and play it at the same time. It needs to be an instrument that currently doesn’t have much esteem, but is easy to carry and not too hard to learn to play. I know—it’ll be the accordion. A down-sized, computer-chip driven accordion. You heard it here first.

The Piano Man

The woman approached his piano a little unsteadily, leaned over and whispered suggestively into his ear, “Play ‘The Piano Man’ for me, old fellow, OK?” Before she could make her way back to plop down on a sofa at the edge of the fancy hotel lobby, he had already swung into Billy Joel’s long-ago hit. “Sing us a song, you’re the piano man, sing us a song tonight…”

He didn’t sing it, but he could hear the words in his head as he played, which he did reflexively nowadays, his fingers finding the notes without effort or consciousness. Once in a rare while, a guest striding through the gracious hotel lobby in this small town in central Chile or having a solitary drink at the small bar off the lobby would nod appreciatively and a little of the old feeling would return. But most of the time he was background music.

It hadn’t always been like this. He’d been such a glorious young man, handsome, and so suave. The original “piano man.” The piano came so easily. Since he was a small boy, Carlos could just sit at the keyboard and play whatever came into his mind. He’d had lessons later, classical, when his mother discovered him playing tunes “by heart” on the stage piano after her rehearsals when he was just four or five. But, with that incredible gift came also a certain laziness, or perhaps a lack of self-discipline. He had never achieved the ultimate—a concert pianist, much to his mother’s disappointment, but he had had a wonderfully rich life, full of experiences, women (ah, the women, how he missed them).

That memory reminded him that nothing lasts forever. It had seemed that it would. He had worked his way up the ladder, playing first on Grace Line cruise ships sailing form New York to Valparaiso (such an easy life for the Piano Man) and then through wealthy contacts he made onboard, he’d been introduced to the American greats, and had made the rounds, touring with one then another. Today the walls in his tiny apartment were filled with framed photos of the kind you see behind the cash register in certain restaurants. He and Frankie, he and Tommy Dorsey, photos signed “with love” by Ella, Eartha, Sarah. And now, here he was, in the twilight of his life, playing lounge piano in a hotel lobby in a part of the world no one ever heard of or came to.

That wasn’t quite true, of course. Just yesterday, a woman came into the hotel with her foreign guests—American guests, most likely. She turned from the registration desk across the lobby toward him when he segued into “I’m in the Mood for Love”, and stood listening and swaying slightly on her slender high heeled shoes for a moment until she turned back toward the desk clerk. When her Americans were tended to, and were being ushered by the porter with their bags into the elevator at the back of the lobby, she turned again toward him, cocked her head as if listening carefully, and then, with just a hint of a dance headed toward the front doors, swaying her skirt to his “Hernando’s Hideaway” as she disappeared behind the doorman, leaving only the hint of a hand wave in his direction.

Perhaps she’d be back. Not that she was the equal of so many of the women in his past. But she had a certain something despite the ripeness of her years, the beginning fullness of her body that brought back to Carlos not only memories, but also certain feelings that still tantalized and delighted him. He’d always loved the chase, sometimes even more than the conquest. The woman probably lived in this town, so a discreet chase would be more realistic than a conquest. Well, half a loaf would be better than none.



---

The bellhops and porters sometimes liked to tease him.

“Know what sex at 70 is like, Pa-pa?” they’d ask.

“No, what?” he’d answer them, pretending not to have heard this old joke a thousand times before.

“Putting a marshmallow in a piggy bank!” they’d say, laughing themselves silly like the immature young boys they still were.

Well, let them think that, Carlos thought. With the right woman, the right mood, the right song, he might still enjoy the whole enchilada. This woman, for instance. She was old enough to have had her fill of young men, strong in the loins and weak in the brains. She had an air, a presence that suggested a certain amount of –well, experience. The next time she came in he must see if she wears a wedding band. Perhaps he could ask a few questions of the desk clerk. Not too obviously, though. The Hotel Monteleone liked to think of itself as the most upscale hotel in the region, and they would not like the idea that their piano player had designs on a senora who brought them lots of international guests.


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The next afternoon Carlos walked, as always, the few short blocks from his minuscule apartment to the hotel, reputedly the finest in the region, although not nearly as opulent as those in which he had stayed in New York and Chicago. He walked when the weather was nice, as it often was in this region of the country, to keep the circulation flowing and the digestion efficient. And, if there were no clouds or fog, there was a spot where the view of the nearby volcano was postcard perfect. The just-barely-visible steam venting from the top was always a reminder that the volcano still had energy, passion, although, like him, it had not showed its inner fire in years. As he stepped through the double doors at the entrance to the hotel, he was pleased to see the Americans seated in the lounge area of the lobby, obviously waiting for someone to pick them up. Perhaps the dancing woman would be coming soon. He hoped so.

Although his playing did not officially begin for another half hour, he sat down at the piano. The hotel did provide such a lovely grand piano, he could be grateful for that, and began very softly a simple song to warm up his fingers that nowadays wanted to be a little stiff. Amazing Grace, amazing grace, da-da-da-da, he hummed a little under his breath. Such a lovely tune, and it could be played a million ways, from gospel to blues to country to honky-tonk to imitation classical. For the listeners in the lobby, he played it almost as a lullaby, gentle and soothing.

From his piano bench off to the side of the lobby he could see the two sets of double doors and the revolving door in the middle where guests arrived and departed. The broad steps outside led down to a circular drive where taxis parked to load and unload passengers. There was also enough room for another car to pass, although sometimes someone would park and run into the lobby to fetch a colleague and then would hurry back to the illegally parked car. That’s what he saw just as he finished Amazing Grace and was segueing into April in Paris. Grace, for now he was calling her Amazing Grace in his mind, had parked her tiny green Citroen in the space next to the taxi spot, and was rushing into the lobby.

As she spun through the revolving door in her high heels, hands in the air waving to the Americans, Carlos played a little louder, and as seductively as he could, Love For Sale, Love for Sale. She only glanced in his direction as she gathered up her Americans and bustled them out the double doors of the lobby, but as she rushed to get through the doors herself, she gave just the faintest little wave of her hand over her shoulder in his direction.

“She DOES notice me, “he smiled to himself. “Well, that’s a good start. I hope those Americans are here for a while.”


---
Ah, luck is a lady tonight, he thought. The Americans have come into the lobby and tonight they are sitting close to my piano, unlike the last few nights when they have waited for my lady out near the entrance doors. If I’m lucky, they’ll have a drink before going out to dinner and I might get a chance to catch her eye.

He segued into a medley of American standards—When Sunny Gets Blue, A Tisket, A Tasket, April in Paris, Come Rain or Come Shine. He could see the Americans pausing every so often and glancing his way. Obviously they recognized that he was playing for them. Suddenly one of the women got up from her seat on the sofa and came over to him. She spoke softly. “Do you speak English?” “Yes, senorita, I speak English.” She smiled, “Well then, could you play ‘Sunday Kind of Love’ for this senora?” “It would be my pleasure, Senorita,” he smiled back.

It was just as he rippled the last few bars of the song off the upper keys that his Amazing Grace came rushing through the revolving door at the entrance, slowing when she caught sight of her Americans in the lounge off the lobby, and falling into a saunter that matched the rhythm of his playing.

“This is good,” he thought. “She’s aware of me.”

He waited until after they’d all greeted one another and ordered a round of pre-dinner drinks before he approached the group.

“Buenas tardes, ladies and gentlemen. Is there something special you would like to hear? I’m not a rapper or a hip-hopper, but I know the American standards—show tunes and movie tracks and popular numbers.”

His Amazing Grace looked all around her group and when no one answered, said in a voice as soft and liquid as spring rain “perhaps you’d play one for me?”

“Gladly, senorita,” he said gallantly. “What would it be?”

“Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most. Do you know it?”

“I can see you are a serious aficianado of American ballads”, he said.

“Well, I’m not a professional, but I do like my Ella Fitzgerald,” she said.

He could hardly believe his luck. A luscious lady and a lover of his favorite music as well. It seemed too good to be true.

He put his heart into Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most and hoped she could tell. At least she stopped talking and listened to his rendition all the way through. When he made the little hand wave at the end, raising his right hand from the keyboard on the last fading note like Liberace, she waved back, that little over-the-shoulder wave she’d given him before. And on that hand there was no ring, no wedding band.



---
The next evening he felt he had to make a move. He hadn’t been able to discover how long the Americans were staying, and he knew that when they left he would have no opportunity to run into her. This time he didn’t go to the piano when he first arrived at the hotel, but instead headed for a stool at the bar where he ordered sparkling water with lime and where he could see through the open curtain behind the front desk. The distant volcano was clearly visible today, its top white with snow and with a sprig of steam escaping upward.

He hoped she wouldn’t be late as usual, rushing in to pick up her Americans who were always waiting for her. It would be hard to speak to her with all of them there and her in such a hurry.

But Lady Luck was shining on him again. Before there was any sign of the Americans coming out of the elevator from their upstairs rooms, he caught sight of her coming across the wide covered entrance way. She must have known she was a little early, as she was not rushing as she usually did. She came through the lobby doors, curtsying slightly to the young bellman, and looked around the lobby. From the bar at the back of the lobby, he raised his hand slightly in greeting. She looked surprised, then pleased, and made her way back to the bar, threading her way through the plush sofas and chairs arranged in sitting groups.

“Senorita, “he said, and raised his glass.

“Well, hardly,” she said laughing, “but thank you for the compliment.”

“It’s only the truth. You are a lovely lady.”

“And you play lovely songs.”

“Now I am the one who must thank you for the compliment.”

“It’s only the truth. You are a wonderful pianist.”

“Again, I must offer my thanks.”

“You haven’t spent your life playing in hotel lobbies,” she said. “That much is clear.”

“No, m’amselle,” he said. “I’ve retired from the wider world to this sheltered spot.”

“So you’ve traveled a lot.”

“Oh, yes, indeed, my dear. I have traveled. I have been many places. I have met many people. You would not believe.”

“Tell me. Maybe I will believe.”

“It would take some time. More time than either of us has right now. Perhaps you’d do me the honor of dining with me one evening and we can share these life experiences.”

She looked steadily at him for some time, perhaps deciding if he was too old for her. Or perhaps asking herself what he saw in her.

Then she said, “Well, Maestro, that sounds lovely. I am free on Friday evening.”

“Friday it is, then, my lady. Shall I pick you up in a cab?” He had no idea where she lived, or, at this point, even her name.

“We’ll meet here,” she said quickly. “At eight.”

“Very well, my dear,” he said, noticing the elevator doors open and the Americans step out into the lobby.

“Helloooo,” the American woman called out.

His Amazing Grace turned and smiled at them and said, “Oh good, I was beginning to wonder if I had the time wrong.”

And then they all swooshed through the lobby and out through the sliding glass doors. Amazing Grace gave just the tiniest wave over her shoulder as the doors closed behind her.


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Carlos let it be known to the hotel staff that he had a dinner date with a lovely lady on Friday, and cheerfully put up with the inevitable teasing. In fact, he secretly enjoyed the attention and the reminder of his earlier life as a bon vivant. So when he arrived at the hotel a few minutes before 8:00 pm on Friday, all eyes were on him. He had dressed carefully, wearing a dark suit that, in its day, had been expensive and fashionable. His tie was tasteful, his white shirt practically reflected light, and his black dress shoes were polished and shined. His ancient alpaca overcoat was brushed and hung softly on his shoulders. The only shadow across his mental view of life was the tiny wonder about why Grace (he still didn’t know her actual name) wanted to meet at the hotel, rather than be picked up wherever she lived.

Just a few minutes after eight, before Carlos had started to worry whether she was really coming or not, he saw her get out of a cab at the front of the hotel and say something to the driver. The cabbie waited while she came into the lobby.

The doorman greeted her, “Buenas tardes, senora. I believe your gentleman friend is waiting for you in the lobby.” He gave a little smirk to the desk clerk that Carlos pretended not to see, just as he pretended not to have heard his remark to Grace.

“There you are, lovely lady,” he said. She was wearing a mid-length, evening-style dress made of a clingy lime green fabric that followed her generous curves nicely and accented her still-smooth skin and dark hair and eyes. As usual, she wore high heels—these were sandals-- that showed off lovely slender calves and trim ankles. Her jewelry was modest—a pearl necklace and earrings, real he thought. The end of the necklace disappeared down the front of the dropped neckline and he found his eyes wanting to follow.

“How nice to see you again,” she said, loud enough to be heard by the staff. She knows we’re on display, Carlos thought, and she’s playing along. He liked that about her. And he was pleased to notice that her perfume was an old favorite of his, Shalimar, a fragrance he had often bought from the shops on the cruise ships he had sailed on for one of his long-ago ladies.

“Shall we?” Carlos took her arm and headed them toward the waiting doorman and cabbie beyond.

“By all means,” she said. “Don’t wait up,” she called to the desk clerk.

The desk clerk grinned and pretended to be working on papers at his desk. When Carlos looked over, the desk clerk gave him a big wink, and he could tell that Grace noticed it, too. Carlos realized as they walked through the sliding glass doors that there were smiles all around on the faces of the hotel staff.

“Well, good,” he thought. They need a little excitement in their lives.

He opened the back door of the waiting cab for Grace, and went around to the other door to sit beside her, not too close, but not too far away either. Turning to face her, he said, “I’ve made reservations at the Club Monique. Is that all right?”

“That is more than all right,” she said, “they have wonderful food there. Do you go there often?”

“Club Monique,” he said to the cabbie, and then turned back to her. “I seldom eat out anymore. But I’ve heard from hotel guests that Club Monique is quite good. So you have eaten there before?”

“Many times, “she said with no further explanation.

“Perhaps if we are going to spend the evening together, we should properly introduce ourselves,” Carlos said. “My name is Carlos Montenegro, and I am originally from Valparaiso. I’ve been calling you Grace in my head, from the song Amazing Grace.”

“Well Grace I shall be then,” she said. “I like that name. It suits me, I think. And I am originally from Santiago.”

Along with ninety percent of the population, Carlos thought, but he didn’t push the issue. And if she wants to be Grace, he would just have to accept that.



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Carlos thought he had never had a nicer evening with a lady. The pisco sours before dinner were tart sweet and went down easily, as always. The dinner was perfect. The corbina, or Chilean sea bass, was flaky and delicious. The wine was local but surprisingly elegant. The coffee was strong and made from freshly ground beans, a rarity in this town. The dessert, which they had shared, was luscious chocolate and meringue. Grace was elegant, playful, attentive and even let her hand brush his leg when she reached to retrieve her napkin.

When at last he could think of no other way to extend the evening, he took her hand and raised it to his lips and brushed the tiniest kiss across the back of her hand.

“Well, lovely lady, my Grace, I suppose the Cinderella hour approaches. Much as I hate to end this sublime evening, I can see the waiter hovering, hoping we won’t be much longer. Shall I get a cab and see you home?”

“We can get a cab,” she said, “to go back to the hotel. I’ll go from there.”

“As you wish, my lady,” he said grandly. They stood, he took her arm and they walked arm in arm to the front door through the now -nearly empty restaurant.

“Cab, sir?” the doorman asked.
”Yes, please,” Carlos replied.

The doorman whistled up a cab and Carlos once again deposited his Grace into the back seat, and went around the back of the car to take his place next to her on the other side.

“The Hotel Monteleone,” he said to the driver and leaned back, aware of Grace’s warm presence next to him. Her perfume and a little left-over smoke from the cigarettes all around them at the Club Monique wafted through the chilly air in the back seat.

“Are you warm enough?” he asked.

“Toasty,” she said, “probably from all the wine and then that marvelous coffee.”

“I’m feeling particularly good myself,” Carlos said. “I will treasure this evening.” He settled himself into the leather cushion and, not willing to risk taking her hand, let his shoulder press against hers. They sat that way for the few blocks to the hotel, he with his eyes gently closed and his head resting on the seat, she with her hands relaxed in her lap, her shoulder barely touching his.

When they reached the hotel, the cab driver drove up to the entrance and stopped in front of the big double doors. The hotel doorman jumped into action, opening the back door on Grace’s side for her.

“Senora,” he said, “I hope you have had a pleasant evening.”

“Oh,” she said, sliding away from Carlos and out the door of the cab, “it has been a perfectly wonderful evening. Hasn’t it, Carlos?” she called over her shoulder.

Carlos didn’t reply. He was sitting just as he had during the ride from the restaurant, head resting on the seat back, eyes closed, his hands in his lap, a small smile on his lips.

The cabbie looked back at Carlos, and then suddenly opened his door. He jerked open the back door, reached in and shook Carlos once, twice, and again. Then he reached under Carlos’ shirt cuff and felt for a pulse. He stood up slowly.

“I’m sorry, senora. He is gone. His heart is finished.”