Tending to Virginia by Jill McCorkle

me another one. Those seagulls were squalling so loud I thought I’d go crazy. Then he grabbed me tight, near about as tight as you’ve got my foot, let go a little. He said, ‘goddamnit, Lena, all I’m trying to do is tell you that I love you.’”
    “Shhh,” that woman whispers and picks up her other foot.
    “That’s what he said and I fell flat that’s how hard I fell. He said that and he squeezed my arm so tight it hurt and I knew he was the man. He said, ‘you crazy broad’ and I could’ve died right then and there.”
    “There now, aren’t you feeling better?” Nurse teacher hands her the sponge. “Now you wash yourself and we’ll change your underwear, too.”
    “Yourself. My mama always said ‘yourself’ when she meantyour. . . .” She stops and stares at the woman. “But he died. I can’t believe he died and left me like that.” She takes that warm sponge and rubs it up between her legs, up and down, while that nurse turns around so she won’t have to see. “Seen one, you’ve seen ’em all,” Roy used to say and she told him just remember that then ‘cause he’d never see another but hers. “And mine ain’t quite like everybody else’s,” she had added.
    “What makes it different?” he asked, pulled her up close to him and pressed in with his hips.
    “‘Cause it’s mine,” she said. “And that makes anything I’ve got different. What’s yours is mine and what’s mine is mine.” They had laughed and laughed and that sponge is getting a little cool. She gives it back and puts on her underwear; it has her name in it; it says Lena Carter.
    “Let’s comb your hair and put on some lipstick and you’ll be all ready.”
    “Get Billy! Get Billy!” comes from the hall and the roommate says, “Tell it!”
    “I might have me a Pepsi-Cola while I wait,” she says and hands her mink hat to the maid.
    “Oky doke.” The nurse maid pulls Lena’s hat in place. “Won’t you be hot in this hat?”
    “I’ve been hot my whole life,” she says and laughs. Roy used to call her a hot number, his hot number. “Did you say Roy is stopping backstage?” she asks, reaches up to feel that silky mink on her head.
    “No, Hannah, your niece, is coming here , here to Pinegrove.”
    “Oh yeah.” She follows the nurse out into the hall by the Pepsi machine. “You’re a right cute woman yourself,” she says. “I bet you could get a man if you’d change your shoes.”
    “I’m married,” the nurse teacher says and laughs.
    “Well, did you ever know that hayseed sister-in-law of mine, Tessy Pearson?”
    “No.”
    “No, I guess not,” she says, shakes her head. “Tessy is dead, been dead. Tessy was married to my brother, Harv, and it didn’t stop her none from looking for a man. She found one, too. We all knew. Harv didn’t know.”
    “Hmmm.” The nurse hands her the Pepsi-Cola and leads her down the hall to the front where the hotel is so pretty with all the flowers left from opening night.
    “I never cheated on Roy,” Lena says. “I had chances but I didn’t do it.”
    “You sit right here in the sunshine, now,” nurse says. “I’ll see you tonight.” God knows, the nurse maid couldn’t get another man but Tessy Pearson did, God bless and rest her soul and keep it wherever it is. Lena called her Messy ‘cause she was so filthy to have done that and because her clothes were so bad; she wore such baggy old dresses over those skinny bones that she could have robbed a watermelon patch and nobody would’ve known.
    “Get Billy!” Lena turns to see that old woman in her wheelchair there in the shade, that doll baby held to her chest like it might be nursing. Lena gets up and walks past some of the others on a bench, sitting and staring like old fools, and she stops beside that woman, bends down close to her. “I’m going after Billy right now,” she whispers and that woman looks at her, squints up those old cloudy eyes. “As soon as I find Roy, we’ll go to get