Small Town Girl

'Me, too,' Catherine added.

Tess quickly signed for both of them, flashed them a generic smile and reminded them, 'Mother's surgery is set for six-thirty. Shouldn't we get going?'

In the surgery wing Mary was taken away to get prepped by staff members whose grins announced that they, too, had been informed of Tess's presence. She, meanwhile, was directed to a family lounge. It was located on the second floor and had a bank of windows overlooking a small garden area with park benches and a couple of picnic tables. The room was empty when Tess walked in. On a high wall bracket a television with its sound turned off flickered drearily through some morning newscast. The furniture was standard waiting-room fare-burnt-orange sofa and brown armchairs, a round cafeteria table with stackable chairs. A small sink shared a wall alcove with an electric coffeemaker on which a red light glowed. Tess dropped her big gray bag on a chair and headed straight for it.

The coffee was steaming and fragrant. She filled a foam cup and lifted it to her lips. Turning, she encountered her sister Judy in the doorway.

The cup lowered slowly while the two sisters stared at each other and Tess remained where she was.

Judy offered no spontaneous exuberance, as Renee had. Instead, she let her purse strap slip from her shoulder and said, 'Well…' as she advanced into the room with a touch of Roseanne Barr insolence in her slow waddle.

'Hello, Judy.'

'I see you got her here on time.'

'Well, that's a nice greeting.'

'Too early in the morning for nice greetings.' Judy's thongs slapped as she went to the coffee machine and filled a foam cup for herself. Watching her from behind, Tess thought, she's gained weight again. She was shaped like a hogshead and covered her mammoth curves with oversized tops that hid everything but her rather stubby lower legs. Today she wore a giant white T-shirt with a Mickey Mouse logo over a pair of faded black knee-length tights. She owned a beauty shop, so her hair was always kept dyed and styled, and she wore a modest amount of makeup, but the truth was, Judy was a very unattractive woman. Mary had always said, 'Judy got her looks from Daddy's side of the family.' Smiling, her eyes seemed to get lost above her cheeks; unsmiling, she looked overly jowly. Her mouth was too small to be pretty, and she had, unfortunately, chosen to style her hair in a broom cut that accented how pudgy her face was.

For years Tess had held the conviction that the reason she and Judy didn't get along was because Judy was jealous.

As the older sister turned with a cup of coffee in her hand, the contrast between the two women pointed out the likelihood. Even thrown together as Tess was this morning, she was cute and thin in her skinny jeans. The unfussy fringe around her face gave a hint of the stylish haircut disguised by her cap. With nothing but lipstick for makeup her features broadcast the photogenic quality that had put her on the covers of dozens of magazines both in and out of the music trade-milky skin with a hint of freckles, almond eyes with auburn lashes and a pretty pair of lips. Her hands were eye-catching as well, her trademark nails nearly an inch long, painted persimmon and cultured to catch gazes. Judy lifted her cup with blunt fingers whose nails were cropped short and unpainted.

Given the marked difference in the two women's size and appearance, a stranger who walked in would never have guessed they were sisters.

Judy said, 'The truth is, I really didn't think you'd come.'

'The truth is, I didn't like how I was asked.'

'I suppose nobody you work with gives you orders.'

'You don't know the first thing about the people I work with or how we operate, because you never ask. You just make assumptions.'

'That's right. And I assumed you'd do like you've been doing since you left Wintergreen, which is to leave every bit of Mother's care up to Renee and me and the guys.'

'You could have asked, Judy.'

'And what would you have said? That you had to go on tour in Texas, or that you had some rehearsals for some awards shows or whatever else is so God-almighty important that everything in the world should revolve around your schedule?'

'When did I ever say anything like that?'

'You didn't even come home for her birthday! Or last Christmas!'

'I sent her a birthday gift from Seattle, and last Christmas I was so exhausted I had only forty-eight hours off.'

'She doesn't want gifts, don't you know that? All she wants is to see you now and then.'

'You make it sound like I never come home.'

'How long since you were here last time?'

'Judy, could we just…' Tess raised both hands as if pushing open a heavy plate-glass door. Her eyelids slammed closed, then opened again. 'Shelve this and try to get along while I'm here? And the next time you need something from me, don't call and issue an imperial order. Just try asking, okay? I'm not sleeping in the farthest bed from the steps anymore, and I'm not your baby sister who's always getting into your diary and using your makeup. I'm all grown-up now and I don't take orders from you, okay?'

'Well, you did this time, didn't you… Mac?'

Nobody in the family called her Mac. To them she had remained Tess, while Mac had become her professional nickname. It was the one her fans had coined, the one they chanted as they waited for her to come onstage, the one that was printed on the shirts she sold at concerts, the one the nation recognized as they recognized only a select group of other entertainers who'd gone by single names-Elvis, Sting, Prince.

Mac.

While the word reverberated in the room, a woman in a white uniform came to the door and said, 'Miss McPhail? I heard you were in here. If it's not too much trouble, may I have your autograph? I'll just leave this on the table and you can drop it at the nurses' station whenever. My name's Elly.' She was the ideal fan, in Tess's eyes, bringing respect along with good taste in her request. Tess loved the way she'd asked. Leaving the room, the nurse said over her shoulder, 'Thanks a lot. You've got a super voice.'

It was more than Judy had ever said in her life.

Tess sat down at the table, set her cup aside and signed the paper while Judy looked down her nose in silence.

As Tess finished, Renee showed up in the doorway. 'Hey, you two, here's where you are! I just passed somebody in a uniform who says they want us down the hall before they take Momma in. Come on.'

Tess got up and took off like a shot, passing Renee in the doorway.

'What's wrong with her?' Renee asked Judy.

'Same thing as always. Thinks she's too good for the rest of us.'

'Judy! Do you have to be at her all the time? She just got here, for heaven's sake.'

' 'Bout time, too,' Judy grumbled as the two followed.

In the hall Mary was lying on a gurney, covered to the shoulders. By turns, her children bent over her, kissed her and hid their sibling animosities.

'We'll be right here when you wake up, Momma,' Tess told her.

Renee added, 'It's going to go just great, just like last time. Don't you worry.'

'The kids and Ed all said to send you their love and to tell you they'd be up to visit,' Judy said. 'See you soon.'

They watched the gurney roll away and stood motionless, three sisters in the middle of a hospital corridor experiencing some tempering of the discord among them as their concern was funneled toward the mother they all loved. She had looked defenseless, lying flat, her cheeks and jowls drawn backward by gravity, her hair smelling medicinal and looking tatty after back-to-back washings and no stylings. Hip replacement was certainly a common surgery in this day and age, but at seventy-four, who knew what could happen? She was getting set in her ways, occasionally forgetful, stubborn at times, and exasperating at others. But she was the reason they were sisters. She was the source of so many of their mutual childhood memories, the provider of sustenance and love that had been ever present in their lives. And for those few seconds while they stood watching her being rolled away into the care of strangers whose competence they were forced to trust, the trio bonded.

The doors swung shut behind the gurney and the squishy-soled white shoes and blue scrubs disappeared. A