When Fanny Grossman turned eighty-six, she decided she'd had it with life at the Magnolia Village Assisted Living Home in Peachtree City, Georgia. In fact, she was fed up with Peachtree City and its gated communities, the state of Georgia and, especially, Nellie Mae Karr and her goddamn Southern accent. Nellie, the perennially smiling director of Magnolia Village, oozed so much sweetness, Fanny feared she'd lapse into a diabetic coma as Nellie approached.
She tried her best to avoid her, but Nellie was intent on persuading Fanny to join her ceramics class.
"Why, dear, you'll just love it to death. I declare, we have so much fun it's almost sinful."
"Almost isn't good enough for me," Fanny said in a throaty Mae West voice. "I want the real thing." She added, "A bunch of old farts painting ceramic cats doesn't get my panties wet."
Nellie blushed and went silent. Fanny wondered if she was offering a silent prayer asking God to forgive her vulgarity. Still, Nellie kept smiling, displaying newly capped teeth. "Why look at the time, sugar. I must get back to work."
Fanny turned to Mac Jones, the black security guard who was sitting at a table nearby. "Wake her up in the middle of the night and she'll talk normal." Fanny stressed her New York pronunciation of "tawk nawmal," and winked.
Mac put his whole body into his laugh. He pounded the table and stomped his feet. "You something else, Fanny. I swear, if you was thirty years younger, I'd make a honest woman of you."
"If I was thirty years younger, what would I want with your fat ass? I'd get me a kid about thirty and show him such a good time he'd have a smile on his face even when he was with his wife."
Mac resumed his pounding and stomping. "Is it true what I hear about you, Fanny? That you danced in the burlesque when you was young?"
Rumors filled the overheated air at Magnolia Village and spread like kudzu on an abandoned trailer. Fanny, of course, started the most outrageous stories. Or, at least, encouraged them.
Her appearance shocked the good Baptist men and women of Magnolia Village, and Fanny loved it. Although she often described herself using the Yiddish word, "zaftig," which she translated as "full-figured," she still wore her pants tight and her blouse cut low enough to display a wrinkled, but ample bosom. She dyed her hair flaming red and applied enough lipstick and rouge to make Barnum and Bailey's clowns appear understated. A career in burlesque seemed perfectly reasonable.
She smiled and winked. "You promise not to tell anyone, Mac? The closest I ever got to burlesque was watching Milton Berle on television. I waited tables and I worked in the Brooklyn Navy Yard during the war. When I got married, I kept the books for my husband's dry cleaning business. Fifty-three years we were married. The only thing I regret is that we never had children."
"So how'd you end up here?" Mac asked.
"Herman, my husband, he only wanted to retire someplace where it's warm and quiet. He knew Georgia from being stationed here during the war and this is where he wanted to die." She exhaled a loud sigh. "He had his wish. We bought a house in Peachtree City and for a year he rode around in a golf cart with an American Flag. I kept telling him he should put on one of those funny hats and he'd look like a Shriner. One night, before bed, he said he didn't feel so good. He never woke up."
Mac lowered his eyes. "How come you didn't go back to New York?"
"I stayed here because that was what Herman woulda wanted. Then I got sick and couldn't keep up the house. So I came to this place." She shook her head. "But this isn't for me."
"I hear you," Mac said. "If it wasn't so damn cold, I'd move back to Chicago in a heartbeat. My wife, though, she's from Macon, and she tells me the only way I can get her to move north is in a coffin."
Fanny nodded, waving her hand. "I don't have much time left. I know that. But I never had patience for people who sit around waiting to die. And I'll be damned if I start now!"
She fought back a tear and looked around at the comfortable but artificial surroundings. An overstuffed couch and chairs, covered with plastic, faced an immaculate fireplace. Vases filled with waxed flowers adorned almost every tabletop. "That's the problem with Nellie. I'm sure she means well, but you spend enough time with her and you want to die. What this place needs is a little excitement."
With that, she pulled out of her oversized handbag an issue of Creative Loafing, an alternative newspaper in Atlanta. "I want you to read what I put in the paper."
He read a highlighted ad: Ex-Burlesque queen seeks females or she-males to practice with. Pros or amateurs, welcome. Days or nights. Call 404-555-6985.
"Hey," Mac said, his eyes bulging out of his head. "I thought you said you was never in burlesque." He wrinkled his eyes. "You ain't going senile, are you? I won't have no one to talk to if you do."
She laughed. "Maybe I am, but look at the phone number."
Mac studied the number. Slowly, he looked up from the newspaper. A smile formed on his lips, gradually exploding into a full-bodied guffaw.
"That's Nellie Karr's number, ain't it?"
Fanny winked and turned to walk away. So certain was she that Mac's eyes were watching her ass, she twitched it as if she really were the queen of burlesque.