The Next Queen of Heaven-SA by Gregory Maguire

and not under surveillance, so Tabitha decided to call Hogan’s dad. His name was Wally Hauenstein and he lived in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania. Or, apparently, he used to. The phone was disconnected and there was no Wally Hauenstein listed, not in the whole greater Philadelphia metropolitan area.

    Tabitha considered sauntering by Hogan’s room and letting him know this interesting piece of news. But that could wait; she didn’t have the time to be nasty. She just continued down the list of her mother’s former husbands to Booth Garrison. A long phone message listed all sorts of fax numbers and beeper numbers and weekend cottage numbers. She maintained a steady hand on the receiver until the ping sounded. “Daddy Booth, this is Tabitha, would you call us, thanks,” and she heard his voice say “Hello?” just as she was about to hang up.

    “You want me to come out to Thebes?” said Daddy Booth. “Is that what you’re asking me to do?”

    “I don’t know,” said Tabitha. “I’m asking you to do something.”

    “Put Kirk on the line.”

    “He’s making cookies. It’ll take him a minute to fold up his frilly apron.” She wasn’t fond of Daddy Booth, and she hadn’t been fond of him during the nineteen months of his marriage to their mother. He’d coddled baby Kirk, he’d been wary of Hogan even as a toddler, and he’d considered Tabitha moronic. But he’d been marginally more involved in the upbringing of his son and stepkids, even after the divorce, than either Daddy Casey or Daddy Wally. He alone sent a check once in a while. And if his work took him into the vicinity he would stop by for a meal.

    He had a real love-hate thing for Kirk, Kirk being his only son but so disappointing. He knew that Kirk was bright even if he was probably going to be a faggot someday. Booth Garrison liked bright people; he liked himself in that regard, too. All the more reason for Tabitha to sneer at Kirk as he came up and took the phone receiver. “Hi,” said Kirk, noncommittal with his dad as always.

    Tabitha listened to the conversation for a while, and then lost track. She wandered down the hall and pushed her mother’s bedroom door open an inch or two. Her mother had fallen asleep on her bed. A red lacy shawl was draped over the bedside lamp and rosy patterns, like cells in bio lab, spiderwebbed the walls. It was less like a bordello than a trip into someone’s large intestine. The packet of bacon had slipped to one side and lay halfway across an inert Bible.

    Her mother looked like an old woman, though she was a pert late fortysomething; Tabitha could never remember the age exactly. Her mother’s mouth drooped a bit, and Tabitha noticed creases in the skin around the jaw. Interesting, when her mother believed in being not just active but active: She liked to move. She liked to swing from room to room and do things, to run from place to place, to guide that car along the roads. She was supposed to be full of zeal and criticism. But asleep in the late afternoon? She was a picture of someone’s grandmother.

    That, Tabitha realized, is part of the problem. It’s hard enough to deal with a mother, especially an annoying mom like a Leontina Scales. But to have her promoted with no advance warning into grandmotherliness—well, it’s shocking. And she’s not taking care of her hair at all.
    She looks like Albert Einstein when he was discovering electricity

    “What’d he say?” asked Tabitha, when Kirk had hung up with that irritating gentility he showed to inanimate objects.

    “Basically, he reminded us that he had divorced her thirteen and a half years ago and it was our turn.”

    “To take care of her?” Tabitha was shocked.

    “To divorce her.”

    “And you said?”

    “I said, Screw you, Daddy Booth.”

    “Screw you? Gee whillikers, Boy Wonderpants, don’t be so Fifties! I mean, for God’s sake, can’t you even say fuck you when it’s the right time to say fuck you? What do you think,