Not Even Univac Could Figure Her Out

Growing up, my sister and I knew when our mother was talking on the phone with Ann because she always took on Ann’s voice. Ann has this extraordinary speech pattern: Southern and therefore slow and deliberate with added syllables. (My mother’s name Joanne becomes Jo-ah-yuhn.) Unlike other Southerners, though, her voice is not rounded-out, soft, or gravelly, but a roller-coaster voice with peaks of sharp, but still pleasant intonation. Hers is a voice with constant excitement, emphasis, punctuated with laughter, a musical voice that never ceases to make you want to listen.

Friends since they were three years old, “running wild up and down Main Street, jumping from the rooftops of downtown buildings”, it wasn’t until they were in their teens that it occurred to my mother that Ann was “a little slow”. No matter. They’ve remained friends to this day, now in their eighth decade of life.

Ann gets words wrong. She could have been the prototype for Amelia Bedelia. As teenagers, she was so proud of the cashmere sweater she’d bought, calling my mother on the phone to celebrate her purchase. “Is it a cardigan?” my mother asked. “No, Joanne. I already told you it was a cashmere.”

Later in life she showed my mother her “varico” vein. “It’s variCOSE, Ann, not variCO.” Ann said with her customary stubbornness, “You don’t understand, Joanne. I only have ONE.”

My mother and her friends would spend hours sitting around our kitchen table, smoking, drinking, playing a little cards, philosophizing. One afternoon, lips loosened by drink, Mama and Martha got on the subject of Ann’s inscrutability, my mother saying, “Not even Univac could figure Ann out.”

The next day Ann was petulant and cold, yet ready to explain why when my mother asked what was wrong. “I don’t appreciate you talking about me behind my back. Whoever this Univac person is, he doesn’t even know me!”