All of this preparation led to a picture of the bride and groom coming down the aisle after the ceremony and a half page retelling of the event and the showers that led up to it in the Wadley Herald. Every bride knew there were more subscribers to the weekly paper than people who lived in town. It could even be considered the first chain letter.
To me, Joanne Scott, weddings were the ultimate fantasy. In grammar school, while my friends were in the woods playing Tarzan and Jane, we performed plays on Connie Hayes’s stage-high front porch. I used a piece of net left over from making a crinoline petticoat and satin drapery material to become a bride.
From childhood dress-up, the girls moved on to Home Economics and Future Homemakers of America and the ultimate hero-crush on an older girl you wanted to emulate. Trust me, these girls were the first real Barbies. We put them on a pedestal and waited for the secrets of boys, romance and womanhood to be revealed. My Barbie was eighteen and lived across the street. Long legged, black-eyed, she had dark shiny hair she rolled in pin curls at night and tied back by a ribbon or fastened with a barrette.
Her name was Rose Robertson, but she insisted with dramatic flair that everyone call her ‘Irish.’ That’s another thing, as a measure of your popularity, nicknames were almost as important as the number of attendants you had in the wedding. Irish made up her own nickname in fourth grade. That’s when she first saw Dink Langlin. She’s been planning her wedding ever since.
As captain of the Wadley Dragons Cheerleadering squad, Miss Wadley High School and the president of the Future Homemakers, she was willing to wait. Each event brought her a step closer to Dink and marriage.
The Germans were marching across Europe by the time they graduated. But that didn’t touch us until the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Dink, along with most of the young men in town, signed up to save the world. Once he enlisted, Irish was caught up in the excitement. When he was settled in a far-away Army post, they’d marry and she’d follow him. But it didn’t work that way. The only ‘Irish’ Dink took with him was a curled black and white snapshot of a dreamy-eyed girl leaning against the side of a car, her foot on the running board and her skirt pulled up to expose her long legs. A scarf was tied around her neck calling attention to her chest pushed out ever so slightly against the thin sweater she was wearing. Betty Grable had nothing on Irish Robertson.
I was twelve when Irish, grew tired of waiting for Dink and even more tired of missing out on what was going on in the world. She broke my heart by running away to Atlanta, explaining that she was only doing her patriotic duty by taking a job in the bomber plant. No more watching her studying the movie magazines for new hairstyles or helping her dress and apply her make-up for a date who was only standing in for Dink. She rarely visited home, since gas was rationed and men and women in the service were given first choice of seats on the bus. Then the war ended and our “boys” returned and took back their jobs. Irish stayed on in Atlanta for a year before she came finally came home. By that time I was sixteen and reading Seventeen Magazine while I dreamed of marrying Jeff Coleman who delivered Merita Bread to Archie’s Grocery where I worked part time. The day Irish came home she took me up to her room and showed me her engagement ring.
“Oh, Irish, did Dink finally propose?”
“Dink? Of course not. He’s a child. You don’t know this man.”
“Who is he?” I asked breathlessly as I collapsed on the floor at her feet.
“I shouldn’t tell you,” she said, dancing around the room to the humming of the wedding march. “I haven’t told my mama and daddy yet.”
“Tell me! Tell me,” I pleaded.
“All right. I’ve met a real man, a sophisticated banker from Mobile. His family is one of the first families of Alabama. They belong to a country club and play golf and . . . he’s tall and he wants to marry me.”
“When are you getting married?”
“As soon as we can arrange the wedding. I have to get a dress and choose my bridesmaids and pick out china and crystal. But first, I have to tell Mama.”
“What about your daddy? Mr. McKay won’t like him being from Alabama.”
“Yes, I have to tell him, too.” She sank down on the bed, the smile on her face turning into an expression of worry. “And he’s going to say no. I’m sure of it. Oh, Joanna, what am I going to do? I don’t want to live here and join the Missionary Society and work in the bank. I desperately want to marry James. Suppose daddy won’t agree?”
“You could elope,” I suggested. “You’re over twenty-one.”
“I would, but James won’t hear of it. His family expects a church wedding. I just have to convince Mama and Daddy. I’ll do it tonight, but you have to stay for supper. I need moral support.”
“But won’t they think that’s strange, me being here when you’re telling them something so personal?”
“You’re always here, Joanna. Mama looks at you as a second daughter. They won’t even notice. Please?”
I wasn’t comfortable with her request, but I could never refuse Irish. I’d been her shadow for too many years. Besides, this was the juiciest event since Louisa Bedingfield eloped with the mailman the night of her high school graduation.
Irish waited until her mother served her lemon ice box pie and started to clear the table. “Mama, wait a minute please. I have to tell you and Daddy something.” She started off slow, “I’m engaged,” then finished in a rush with, “And I’m getting married.”
There was complete silence.
Her mother sank down in her chair, still holding the stack of desert plates. She asked,” Who are you marrying?”
“You don’t know him, he’s from Alabama,” Irish answered.
Miss Willa set the plates on the table.” Why isn’t he here with you?” she asked.
“He’s gone home to tell his parents while I tell you. I thought we could start making plans. You’ll meet him when he comes for me in two weeks. Then I’ll go over for a visit with my future in-laws.”
Mr. McKay pushed his chair back from the table. “There will be no wedding plans until the boy talks to me,” he growled.
“He’s not a boy,” Irish protested. “He’s a man, the kind of man I want to marry. Don’t embarrass me, Daddy. He comes from an old family in Mobile, Alabama.”
“So?” Miss Willa snapped, something she rarely did. “I come from an old family here in Wadley, Georgia. What makes him so special?”
“Well he’s very handsome. He’s well-to-do. He’s going to buy me a house, and . . . he . . . Mama, he wears suits and . . . gets manicures.”
I saw her daddy wince when she mentioned manicures. You see, he lost two fingers in an accident in the box factory. After they ran out of wood and cardboard during the depression, Mr. McKay opened a service station where he sold more service than gas. Gas being in short supply. Most of the folks in town would have been reduced to walking if not for Mr. McKay’s skill at improvising car parts. He made a living, but the grease under his fingernails became his permanent medal of honor. We didn’t have a manicurist and no man in Wadley would ever have been seen getting a manicure anyway.
That’s when everything went crazy. Mr. McKay stood and left the table and Miss Willa followed him. With great sympathy, I comforted Irish afterward. She spent the next hour crying, bathing her swollen eyes, while I pumped her for all the delicious details of their courtship. Then she sent me home, closed her bedroom door and refused to come out until her daddy agreed to be nice to her fiancée.
The next day Irish was still locked in her room. Miss Willa and her neighbors from either side, Nettie Mills and Thelma Chandler sat on the veranda snapping green beans and talked about what ought to be done. I discovered that if I sat in the back and kept quiet, the women forgot I was there.
“Willa, I don’t know why McKay is so against Rose marrying,” Miss Nettie said. “He�
�s just gonna make them run away like you and McKay did.”
Miss Willa and McKay eloped? That was grown-up news to me.
“We didn’t run away,” Miss Willa said. “Everybody went off and got married during the depression.”
“You didn’t just go off and get married; your elopement was a pure work of art,” Nettie argued. “I was there, remember? I’m the one who came to spend the night with you—supposedly to help you in your mama’s and daddy’s café. I’m the one who packed your clothes in with mine so you could smuggle them out of the house.”
Thelma Chandler dropped all pretense of snapping beans. She was the only outsider in the group, having lived in Louisville, the next town, before she married a local farmer. “Tell me about your wedding.”
“I might as well,” Miss Willa said, “before it was over, everybody in town was involved in the elopement. It all happened because my mother didn’t want me to get married. Back then, my folks didn’t really have a café, they sold barbeque, gas when people had money to buy it and cigarettes. Mama needed my help to pump the gas. She didn’t like the smell of it on her hands.”
“She needed your help,” Nettie agreed, “but that wasn’t the only reason. She just plain didn’t like McKay. Never understood that. He might have been a little wild but he had a job when a lot of men didn’t until the box factory closed. Kept him and you out of the soup lines.”
“We didn’t have any soup lines,” Willa said. In Wadley, people look after each other.”
“That’s just another way of saying they get into everybody else’s business,” Thelma said. “Get back to the elopement. How’d you manage to get away that day?”
“It was almost dark. Roger Alston and Pete Hawkins drove out to the café on the highway south of town and pulled up to the door. They blew the horn for gas and I ran out to pump fifty cents worth. Pete wanted a pack of Lucky Strike cigarettes and gave me the money. I put the money in the drawer and took out his change. “The man wants cigarettes, Mama,” I said, and waited until my mother looked away. Then I ran back to the car. When I got there, Roger opened the back door and pulled me in.”
I was never sure he had to do it, but he pulled off like the sheriff was after us. Before we got out of sight, Mama and Daddy had closed the restaurant door and pulled in right behind us. They would have caught us but daddy’s Model T gave out of gas just as it reached the bridge over Boggy Gut Creek. Like I said, Mama didn’t like the smell of gas on her hands so making sure the tank was full was my responsibility. I must have forgotten to do it.”
Thelma nodded. “Smart girl. That’s what I would have done, too. Go on.”
Miss Willa continued, “The plan was to meet up with McKay at Nettie’s house. But Mama and Daddy managed to get a ride with Mr. Raines and when we saw him gaining on us in his beat up old truck, we knew we were in trouble. Everybody in the county knew that the truck could fly. That’s how he escaped the law when he made his weekly run over to Augusta delivering moonshine”
“Did he catch you?” Thelma asked.
“No, about that time we came up on the cemetery on the right, dark and spooky in the moonlight. Roger, pulled in. ‘Get out, Willa. Hide behind Rachel Steven’s angel tombstone and we’ll come back for you,’ he said.
“I had what my Mother called a “Come to Jesus” moment. Cemeteries scared me to death in the daytime. At night they were Halloween’s worst ghost story come to life. The cemetery was full of crickets chirping, frogs croaking and the movement of small animals. Was being Mrs. McKay Robertson worth it? I almost changed my mind.”
“But she didn’t,” Nettie took up the story. “Lois Battle came and got me at the cafe and we headed to my house. McKay was there but Willa wasn’t. He was sure that your folks had caught you, Willa. It was all we could do to keep him from going after you.”
“About that time I was wishing you had. Mr. Raines’s truck stopped in front of the cemetery and I could hear my daddy cussing. Mama wanted Mr. Raines to take them to the sheriff’s office but he wouldn’t, even when daddy offered to pay him. Said, if the law looked in his truck, his fine would cost more than daddy’s bribe. Daddy stomped around in the dark, at one point, heading straight for me.”
I’d been quiet until then, as mesmerized as Thelma. “What stopped him?” I blurted out before I thought. But Miss Willa was into the telling now and I could see that this was her moment of glory. She didn’t even look at me.
“An owl lit on Rachel Steven’s angel’s left arm and hooted every time I moved. Daddy seemed to focus on the bird for a moment then climbed back in the truck. McKay never knew it, but when we stopped for me to change into the suit I was married in it was for a totally different reason that I’d planned.”
“So, you managed to get away,” Thelma said.
“Yes. Once they came back for me, we formed a caravan, the boys in Roger’s car and the girls in Lois’s and headed for the Justice of the Peace. After the wedding, Roger and Pete got in the car with Lois and went home. McKay and I went on to Augusta.”
“And what happened?” Nettie asked. “You never did tell us.”
“And I never will,” Willa said sharply. “Let’s get these beans snapped.” She sighed. “I may not agree, but I’ve guess we got to start making plans for this wedding.”
“You think McKay will go along with Irish marrying this man?” Thelma asked.
“McKay’s a stubborn fool. He wanted Irish to marry Dink but if she’s found somebody else—and it takes a trip to Augusta to force him to be civil to Irish’s intended, we’ll go.”
Nettie frowned. “What’s in Augusta that will change his mind.”
Willa smiled. “The Blue Bird Motel.”
I DON’T KNOW who let the secret out, it certainly wasn’t me. I’d sworn to Irish on my honor to keep it quiet. If the town found out that Irish came home to get married to a stranger, I certainly didn’t tell them. But I owed it to Irish to let them know what a fine catch he was.
When Jeff Coleman stopped by the store on Saturday night to take me to a movie, I knew it was safe to tell him. Louisville, where he lived, was ten miles away.
“Sounds like she’s moving up in the world,” he said. “I’d marry a woman with money over somebody in Jefferson County anytime.”
Well, that let me out. I’d never have money. But I had another reason for questioning Irish’s choice. “I wonder if she really loves him? She always said she’d marry Dink.”
“And who’s Dink?”
“He’s a great looking guy she went to school with. Everybody knew they’d get married. But he joined the Army and said they had to wait until he was assigned to a post. Then he became a pilot and went to the Europe.”
“So, what happened?”
“Irish said if he didn’t marry her before he left, she wouldn’t wait. I don’t know what happened but I think they were both sorry they broke up. Irish waited for a while, then when he didn’t send for her, she returned his class ring. Then he got shot down and he’s been in the hospital for a long time.”
We were sitting in Jeff’s truck at the only traffic light in town when the Greyhound Bus pulled in and several passengers got off. One of them was wearing a uniform. As we watched, he dug his duffle bag out of the luggage compartment and threw it over his shoulder. When he crossed the street and the railroad tracks, I realized who it was. “Oh, my goodness, Jeff, that’s him, that’s Dink Langlin. Quick, take me home. I have to tell Irish.”
“But we’re going to the drive-in movie and . . .”
Make out. I knew what he was thinking and I was having a hard time heading him off. I was having a harder time saying no. It wasn’t that I wasn’t interested. I was more than interested. But being with Irish had made me catch a little of her excitement about getting out of a little town that was slowly drying up.
“Quick, let’s g
ive Dink a ride. He ought to know that Irish is here and . . . engaged. I mean somebody ought to tell him, don’t you think?”
I can’t say that Jeff was in agreement, but he quickly saw that his plans were being put on hold. The sooner I was satisfied, they sooner he would be.” He turned the truck around and drove back toward Dink.
“Does he know you?” he asked. “He certainly won’t know me.”
“Sure,” I said, hoping that at least he’d know my name when I quickly called out, “Hi, Dink. You remember me, Joanna Scott, Irish’s friend.”
He stopped and looked into the truck. “You’re little Joanna?”
“Well, I’m not so little anymore. Get in. We’ll give you a ride.”
Dink threw his bag into the back and climbed in.
“This is my boyfriend, Jeff,” I said. “Your mama said you’ve been . . . sick. I know they’ll be glad you’re home. I . . . I think you ought to know . . .” I babbled on, “I mean you might want to know that Irish is kinda home on leave, too.”
He didn’t say anything. Maybe this was a bad idea. No, he needed to know. Irish would want him to know. “And she’s getting married,” I added in a rush. “Not that Mr. McKay has agreed. Miss Willa said he wanted Irish to marry you.”
Dink reached inside his shirt pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. “Oh? Who’s she going to marry?” he asked a little too casual for the shake of the lighter he was holding.
“Some man from Alabama, a banker, I think, but Mr. McKay won’t give her permission until he talks to the man. I can’t imagine what Mr. McKay’s gonna say.”
“I do,” Dink said with a dry laugh. “The same thing he said to me when I asked for Irish’s hand. “What you gonna give me in exchange?”
Jeff drove slowly up Main Street and turned right on the Midville Road. “You’re kidding,” he said as he turned into the sandy yard next to the Langlin house.
More Sweet Tea Page 15
