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Particles

When Clemmie Goss read in Martha Stewart Living magazine that a flushed commode will spray microscopic waste particles through the air and contaminate objects up to six feet away --- objects such as washcloths and toothbrushes --- she went straight for her sewing box and grabbled out her measuring tape. And even as she was stretching the it across the bathroom, she began to wonder: "Martha Stewart, my hind foot." Does the woman even flush her own commode? Why six feet? Why not seven? Or eight? Or all the way out the door, down the hall and all over the living room? Just to be safe, she stacked all the towels and washcloths in the back bedroom closet and put her denture glass out on screened-in porch.


Lilly Marsh was driving as fast as she dared. She'd been in The Young Look setting Mrs. Thrimblett's hair when Dolly Jackson come puffing in from next door saying he'd got an emergency phone call from Lilly's sister, Nacinda. Something the matter at the house. Dolly hadn't asked what, just dropped the phone and come running.

Lilly came in the house carrying the denture glass. "Mama? What's the matter? What're your teeth doing out on the porch?"

Clemmie was in her rocker, having a conversation with Pat Sajak. The fact that Pat wasn't holding up his end didn't bother Clemmie at all. She knew good and well that he was on TV in the middle of his show and couldn't very well talk back what with having to keep up with all those letters and the wheel and what have you. Lilly stood in the living room, holding the glass. "He can't hear you, Mama. It isn't live. And even if it was, he still couldn't hear you because --- "

The telephone on the kitchen wall began to ring, and Clemmie told Pat she'd be right back. Lilly watched her mother push herself up out of the rocker with the familiar grunt --- Mmph --- unhook her cane off the end table and totter across the room. When Clemmie moved into the little house behind her daughter's two years ago, Lilly had tried to get her mother to let Glenn put an extension on the table beside the rocker, but Clemmie wouldn't have it. Why, God and Pat Sajak only knew.

After a minute or two, Clemmie returned with a stick of butter. "That was your sister," she said, holding the butter out. "She's popped her her some corn and couldn't find butter in your refrigerator."

Lilly took the butter and returned the denture glass to the bathroom. "Why do you give her everything she asks for, Mama? Nacinda can buy her own butter."

Clemmie eased back into the rocker. Mmph. "I'd be ashamed making over a little cake of butter."

"It's not just the butter and you know it. How long has she lived here, now? Eight months?"

Pat Sajak broke for a commercial and told Clemmie he'd be right back. Clemmie waved at the TV and took a sip of iced tea. "I'm proud to have her. She couldn't help the Dollar Store closing."

"Nacinda's a grown woman, Mama. Grown women are supposed to have their own families, their own houses. You know what she said when the Dollar Store went out of business last fall? 'More time to lay out.'"

"Shht," Clemmie muttered. The telephone rang again, and Lilly headed for it before her mother could start in grunting and tottering. "Those were her exact words, Mama," Lilly said over her shoulder. "She's thirty-nine, for heaven's sake." She picked up the phone, put a palm over the mouthpiece. "I'd been running The Young Look for eight years by the time I was thirty-nine." She put the receiver to her ear and said Hello.

Clemmie muttered about some people being lucky enough to marry a man like Glenn Marsh. Awful lucky, as a matter of fact. Fruit of her loins or not, there were plenty women in this world --- in this county, if you wanted to know the truth --- who had twice her daughter's looks and didn't make out half as good. Everybody knows Glenn Marsh