Calamity Jayne Heads West Read Free

bladder con-trol briefs presently taking up space under my bath-room sink, I didn’t exactly want to discuss toiletries.
    “Clothes? What clothes exactly?” I asked, motioning at my closet. “I have khaki slacks, blue jeans, T-shirts, and no time to shop.” No money either, for that mat-ter. Even working two-plus jobs, I always seemed to be borderline broke. I often dream of the day when I won’t have to view my bank statement through slits be-tween my fingers like I do horror movies at the theater.
    “What about dresses? You got any dresses in there?”
    I gave my grandma a one-eyebrow-raised look. Since my gammy took up residence with me, she’s had her head stuck in my closet more often than I have. She knows exactly how many cowboy boots I own, how many of those she can wear without breaking an an-kle, becoming lame, or suffering a flare-up of her plantar fasciitis, how many pairs of religious under-pants I possess, (the holey ones—amen!) and how many pairs of too-tight designer jeans I’m holding on to for the day I finally lose ten pounds and am able to slide them up over my hips and zip them without snag-ging little tummy rolls with the mechanism in the pro-cess or resulting in that excess skin-spillage-over at the waistline commonly referred to as “muffin top.” As much as I adore muffins, that is not a cool look.
    “Why ask me? You know my wardrobe better than I do,” I told Gram. “And, dresses?” I waved a hand in her face when she joined me at the closet and per-formed a little bow. “Uh, you do recognize your oldest granddaughter, don’t you? The girl who wore the same dress to her best friend’s rehearsal dinner she wore to her grandfather’s funeral. Who popped out of her maid of honor gown when the preacher was ask-ing the bride and bridegroom to exchange tokens of their affection. Who spends what little spare time shehas hay-baling or on the back of a horse. Besides, I don’t even know what kind of weather I’m packing for,” I added. “It’s bound to be warm in Phoenix, but seven thousand feet up in elevation, it could get nippy. Plus, there are those pleasant little monsoons to think about.”
    Iowans like to think they coined the phrase, “If you don’t like the weather, wait ten minutes,” but believe me, the sharp contrasts in weather you could en-counter in a two-hour drive north on Interstate 17 from the valley into the Arizona mountains could re-ally mess with your head, Fred. And your packing, too.
    I also found myself uneasily thinking that weather was the least of what could jump up and bite us in our little westward-ho wedding wagon train.
    “Well, you can’t come to my wedding in blue jeans or those baggy gray sweatpants you wear around the house,” Gram told me, sliding hangers across the pole in my closet with a shake of her head. “You need help, Tressa,” she finally said. “You need to go on Oprah and have one of them makeovers. You know. When they stick gals up there with no makeup and ratty clothes and wearing the wrong bra size, then they hand ’em over to that fine Nate What’s-his-name to work his magic.”
    “Uh, newsflash here, Gram. Nate’s a home decora-tor,” I told her.
    “He is?” she asked.
    I nodded. “ ’Fraid so. He does bedrooms and baths, not bad hair and baggy boobs.”
    She shook her head and returned to her perusal of my wardrobe.
    “All I know is that by the end of the show the gals have gone from looking like bag ladies to bitchin’. And their nipples aren’t rubbin’ their waistlines any-more.” She looked down at her own bosom. “Think Icould use one of them lifts?” she asked. She started to unbutton her blouse.
    “No!” I shook my head and pulled her hand away. Gram had a proclivity for sleeping in the buff, so I’d already gotten enough glimpses of wrinkled, sagging flesh to almost scare me off junk food. Almost. Either way, I’d seen quite enough to render judgment in the matter.
    “No, no. You don’t need