G-L-O-R-I-A

The last time I saw my mother's best and only friend was when we were robbing my mother's grave. Actually, after everyone had left to go back to my stepfather's house, Gloria grabbed me and made me stay behind.

"Hee-yuh," she said, crouching down among the offerings of flowers. She handed me a white wicker basket that had nothing but red flowers in it. Mom wouldn't have approved. For one thing, it had gladiolas in it and she hated them. And red roses were my grandmother's signature flower. My mother's was yellow roses.

I took the basket. "What do you want me to do with it?"

"Hang own." Richmondese for "hang on". With the 'a' drawn out long. Gloria was a Virginia girl through and through. She called her father, "Pawpaw."

"Here. Take this one, too." A mixed basket of carnations and more of the hated gladioli.

Gloria reached out her hand to me and I helped her up. She was only 65, but she had arthritis in every joint of her body along with Reynaud's Syndrome.

She picked up two other baskets.

"Leave the yellow roses," I said.

"Oh, law, yes. I nearly forgot. Sorry, Vuh-gin-yuh! Here now, come on. Let's put these in the back seat of your car so they won't wilt."

We hustled to my car. All around was silence, oppressive heat and humidity and the hum of cicadas.

"Here now. Put these in the back so they don't get crushed."


In the summer of 1964, my divorced mom and married-but-abandoned Gloria decided to take a vacation together. I was still young enough not to hate the beach and I was excited at the thought of being in close quarters with Gloria's son, Stewdie. He was a year younger than I was and we were both only children. I actually got to say things to him like, "Don't get over on my side of the seat!" and relished every second of it. I yearned for a sibling.

Mom and Gloria loaded up Mom's 1963 Impala convertible. Finally, when we were just about to get on the road, Gloria made Mom stop. The sun was shining. Gloria was, as always, wearing her black hair swept back with her husband's Ray-Bans and her signature lavender frosted lipstick. Mom was adorable in her short shorts and top like a French sailor's blouse. "Vuh-gin-yuh, I cain't believe you don't want to drive with the top down! Come own, now. Let's get this top down."

And that was how we drove to Buckroe Beach, a gently decaying resort town. We rented an efficiency at the Golden Sands Motel, which just happened to be where sailors from the Newport News Naval Base would spend their R&R. My mom had a weakness for sailors.

Mom and Gloria would spend their days with us or let us play in the pool with Steve, a sailor who liked kids in a non-creepy way and was good to us. And in the evenings, when Stewdie and I were tucked into our beds, I heard the women flirting with Steve and By George. My mom, flirting! My mom, drinking a beer!

But I knew it was good for us.

I got the sunburn of a lifetime and it was Gloria who knew about ST-37, the world's best sunburn relief. It also works, according to the label, as a mouthwash, wash for any wounds, but its true blessing came when poured on a cold washcloth laid atop a burning back.

I have a feeling it was Gloria who had nudged my mom into taking a vacation. And as I get older, I think I see more of Gloria in me than I'd ever dreamed.

She was tall and I have a feeling she had been compared favorably to Elizabeth Taylor. Hence, the lavender and purple lipstick. I can't go past a lipstick display without finding Gloria's shade. I don't see it worn at all these days. But Gloria could still get away with it.

In my car, Gloria gave me directions through the fadingly familiar back roads of Chesterfield County. "Hee-yuh. Turn in here," she said. "This is the county nursing home. Come on, Vuh-gin-yuh," she said to me.

Once, my mom and Gloria were in the car with my step-father, coming back from a night club.

"Bawb," Gloria said, "You got to pull o-vah. I've got to wee."

"Hell, ain't no place around here for you to go."

"But really, Bawb, I've got to go awfully bad."

"Oh," Mom said. "Now that you mention it, I do too. Bob, pull over. Gloria and I have to wee."

"Honey, there is no place around here for miles."

Gloria fished around in the back seat. "Oh, Virginia, I think I just found an empty coffee can back here. Bob, pull over so Virginia can come back here with me and wee."

My stepfather pulled over.

Doing a little I'm-holding-it dance, Mom got in the back seat.

Bob pulled away from the curb. "There. Y'all happy now?"

"Just about," Gloria said.

They waited for him to get up to speed again, looked at each other, threw their arms in the air and yelled, "Whee!"


We handed two basket of flowers to the receptionist at the nursing home. One, we were told, would go in the dining room. The other would be in the reception room and both would be welcome.

Gloria directed me to another nursing home, the one where her father had been.

"This was fun," I said. "Maybe we should go back and get some more."

"Oh, Vuh-gin-yuh," she said to me. "I'm so tired, let's go back to your house for a cup of coffee." Then she turned to me, smiled, and patted the back of my head. "Becs, I mean. Becs. You're so like her you know. Becs."