Later that evening, Aunt Marilee came into Corrine’s bedroom and put her arms around her and said, “You are growin’ up,” and cried a little, as if Corrine had caught some rare disease.
Corrine, patting her aunt, wondered which one of them was growing up. Or if, indeed, anyone ever really did grow up.
CHAPTER 6
Ahead of Her Time
WHEN THE TELEPHONE RANG, BELINDA WAS curled on the end of her couch, half a glass of wine at hand, fire in the fireplace and Rod Stewart on the stereo. She was reading about menopause in Prescription for Nutritional Healing. It was the same book that she had consulted to help Marilee that afternoon. The book was continually kept open on a stand at the pharmacy for the convenience of customers. After reading in it and talking with Marilee, Belinda had about convinced herself that she was not pregnant but into early menopause. She had experienced hot flashes for two years. This was not at all surprising to her. She always had been a woman ahead of her time.
“Hello, Belinda? This is Corrine.”
“Well, hello, sugar. How are you this evenin’?”
“Fine.”
Belinda stopped in the middle of a sip of wine. Oh, Lord, don’t let the girl be in trouble.
Her mother had for years taken many an after-hours call from teenage girls, and a couple of boys, wanting to know how to get rid of some nasty infection or a surprise pregnancy. It was amazing how young women today were as ignorant of their bodies as young women had been some hundred or even fifty years ago. Parents, supposedly modern in thought and accepting of all manner of “alternate lifestyles,” still did not speak plainly to their children at an early age about normal sexual behavior. They let their children learn the way everyone had learned for generations: from movies, television and the stupid kid up the block—and none of it accurate, healthy information. Basically, modern young women were not modern in regard to any of it. They could smoke weed and get a tattoo and let a boy do all sorts of things to them, but by heaven, they didn’t want to know about their own vaginas and uteruses. They were too busy paying attention to boys during health class to pay attention to what they needed to learn, until they got a crash course. It was said that experience was the best teacher.
In cases of pregnancy, Vella Blaine had a rule about referring the girl to a good counselor that she knew, who would help navigate the decision-making process. (Belinda had the urge to jump up and look for the woman’s card, which her mother had given her for this express purpose.) For any nasty infections, Vella gave private instructions for remedies, or a referral to a good physician.
Three times in the past few years, Belinda had received similar inquiries. She had referred them to her mother, but now, with her mother’s absence, she saw plainly that she would be the one to have to step up to the plate. She did not care for the idea. It was all just awkward and annoying. She had the wild thought to give out the phone number of her mother in France.
Thankfully Corrine ended Belinda’s worry in the next instant with, “I was callin’ about the help wanted sign I saw in the drugstore window.”
“Oh.” Belinda brightened and took a fresh breath.
“Is that for full-time or part-time?”
“Well, sugar, at this point I will take any good help I can get. Are you interested?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Honey, you are hired!” Belinda raised her glass with joy.
“Well, I first need to know the hours and what you are payin’.” Politely but firmly said.
“Of course you do,” replied Belinda instantly. She’d always liked Corrine, and the girl’s statement just increased her opinion, which was that the girl was highly intelligent and a go-getter.
On the spot, Belinda quoted a salary twenty-five cents an hour more than she had planned to offer.
The headlights of Lyle’s patrol car pulled in the drive right at 8:55 p.m.
When on night duty, Lyle liked to take a break around nine and come home for a snack, either a health drink or for a more intimate snack of a different sort. Any of his nightly stopping in, however, had to come before Belinda settled herself in her beautiful bed, with her reading, everything from the Bible and Bible commentary to the Wall Street Journal and the day’s financial reports printed from the computer to the biography of some highly successful person, either current or from history. Sometimes Belinda had all of that in the bed with her. One thing was certain—she disliked, for any reason, to be disturbed from what she called her nightly reading, meditating and consciousness raising.
She would tell him, “Sugar, you have your health routines, and I have mine.”
Lyle’s consisted of lean meats, vegetables and fruits, special protein drinks, lifting weights and running.
Clearly one focused on the mind and one on the body. Belinda thought them a perfect pair.
Already showered and wearing her favorite Delta Burke rose-print satin gown, Belinda met Lyle in the kitchen, anxious to tell him the good news about Corrine. She had just gotten started when she found herself scooped up into his arms and carried so quickly into the bedroom that her head spun.
“You haven’t started readin’ yet, have you?” he asked.
“No, sugar,” Belinda said, just as he entered the bedroom, where the bedside lamps and candles were lit but the books were still stacked on the night chest.
In inspiring movie-scene fashion, Lyle smiled a delighted, sensuous, promising smile and laid her as carefully as a fine jewel upon the bed.
Belinda found herself once more grateful and amazed by the gift she had been given in her man. Truly, as the scriptures said, a woman was made for a man, a fact Lyle proceeded to prove.
Twenty minutes later, Lyle, his shirt still off, made a protein drink in the blender on the kitchen counter. Belinda, all soothed and happy, gazed at his broad, muscular back while she enjoyed a cheese Danish and remembered to tell him about the good fortune of hiring Corrine Pendley.
“She’s goin’ to work each afternoon after school, and close the store twice a week.” She licked her fingers happily. “Now all I need to do is find someone to open the store a couple times a week and work mornings. At least three days. That will sure take a load off.”
“Honey, I’ll be glad to help,” said Lyle, glancing over his shoulder. “I really liked openin’ the other mornin’. I did.”
Belinda, who thought, Ohmyheaven, said, “Sweetie, you have a job. You do not need to stretch yourself by workin’ in the drugstore. You are the head sheriff’s deputy. That is demanding enough.”
“When I’m on nights, I’m never tired when I come home, anyway. I have to unwind, and I just sit around for a couple of hours watchin’ TV. I’d just as soon open the store for you. When I go on days, I can still open, and I can close, since the store’s open later.” As he spoke, he got out his carry mug and poured his drink into it, snapping on the lid.
“I appreciate the offer, sugar—” she sidled up to him, rubbing her hands over his back “—but we can surely get by the two months until Mama comes home. And you are a sheriff’s deputy, and that’s important. You know you don’t work firm hours, either. What if you’re caught up arrestin’ somebody right when the store needs to open or close? You can’t just tell them to wait.”
“I can cuff ’em to a pole and come on to the drugstore,” he said.
Belinda tried to judge the seriousness of this statement. He looked serious. She replied, “Well, maybe you could do that, but we are not goin’ to jeopardize what we just enjoyed—I’m not lettin’ you waste energy on a second job workin’ in the drugstore.” She smiled seductively.
He looked away as he put on his shirt.
Belinda started clearing the counter, remembering the previous morning, after Lyle had opened the store and worked the soda fountain counter with Arlo for an hour. She had come in to find coffee and latte splashes and spills all over, the barbecue pot set on high, a half-eaten banana set aside, and could not walk across the floor without sticking to it. Th
e receipts did not add up to what was in the cash drawer. Lyle never could count change, and he had simply piled a lot of money to the side of the cash register.
“You just think I can’t do anything,” Lyle said.
“What?” She looked over to see him near the door, hat in hand. “I do not think that.”
“Yes, you do. You don’t let me do anything for you.”
“I do so. Who does the mowin’ around here? And…the grilling. And keepin’ me safe.” There, that last one was important.
“I mean that you don’t let me do anything for you, Belinda. You could hire a guy to do everything I do for you.”
“I am hirin’ people to work in the store.”
“It’s not the same. You just don’t let me help you in a special way. And you and that store have your own marriage.”
He actually pointed with his hat, then plopped it on his head and left.
She hurried to the door and called after his shadowy figure, “Well, who was it just in the bedroom with me, then?”
He did not reply.
She stood there and watched his patrol car leave, wondering what had just happened. It was not like Lyle at all to have a complaint or cross word. She had never seen him so perturbed.
Belinda carried her purse into the master bathroom and plopped it on the long counter.
Pausing, she turned back to lock the door, just in case. Then she dug down into the bottom of her purse and pulled out a new pregnancy-test kit—another $6.99 one. She hiked up her thigh-high gown, positioned herself over the toilet and took careful aim at the test strip. It might have been easier for a smaller-breasted woman. And, darn it, she should have drunk a whole glass of water with the sweet roll.
Brrrnnnggg!
The telephone on the wall right beside her ear rang. The test strip slipped out of her fingers.
It could not be. She could not have done it again!
The phone rang again.
She gazed at the test strip floating in the water.
The phone rang yet again. She snatched up the receiver.
“Hell-o!”
“Belinda? Sugar, is that you? It’s your mama. Over in France,” her mother added, as if Belinda might have forgotten where she had gone.
“Yes, it is me, Mama. What other woman would be answerin’ my home phone at ten o’clock at night?”
Her mother, who had at the age of seventy quit living by anyone’s normal hours, said, “Oh, is it ten o’clock there? I must have miscalculated.”
Belinda knew her mother had not bothered to calculate whatsoever.
Her mother continued, “However, is that any way for a daughter to speak to her mother?”
Her mother launched into a lengthy lecture on Belinda’s less-than-cordial attitude, for which Belinda immediately apologized, because her eye had fallen on the pregnancy-test box and she imagined her mother seeing all the way from Europe. She did not think it a stretch of the imagination that her mother had such power.
Her mother then wanted to know how everything was going at the drugstore, and had Belinda been listening to Winston’s new early-morning radio show? Her mother’s awareness of Winston’s escapades was the perfect example of her mother knowing everything, even over in France.
Just then, with her mother’s voice in her ear, Belinda tucked the telephone in the crook of her neck and snatched up the pregnancy-kit box, folded it into a small shape and stuffed it down in the bottom of the wastebasket.
After hanging up with her mother, she went to the kitchen and drank a full glass of water. Returning again to the master bathroom, she shut and locked the door and turned off the phone.
Digging down again into her purse, she pulled out yet another home pregnancy-test kit. After all, Belinda was both the owner of a drugstore and a practical woman who anticipated contingencies.
Opening the box, she removed the test strip and set it on the counter. Then she brought a plastic bedpan from the closet, along with a set of medical collection cups. A drugstore owner had plenty of equipment. She expertly pulled off one collection cup, put it in the bedpan and set the bedpan atop the closed toilet.
She looked at everything with satisfaction.
Then she positioned herself and filled the little collection cup.
She dipped the test strip into the warm liquid.
It was easy to read.
She was pregnant.
A chill swept her. With a precise motion, she rose, set the test strip on the marble counter and got her robe off the hook on the back of the door. She tied the robe snugly, then leaned toward the mirror, studying her face.
Suddenly her head spun and her legs turned to water. She sank down on the side of the large tub, where she put her head in her hands and cried.
CHAPTER 7
1550 on the Radio Dial
The Hank Williams Sunday Morning Gospel Hour
IN FRONT OF THE BATHROOM MIRROR, WINSTON ran an electric razor over his craggy cheeks. From a small black portable radio on the nearby glass shelf came his own voice.
“Good mornin’, folks, and welcome to the Hank Williams Sunday Mornin’ Gospel Hour.”
He mouthed along with the words. He thought he sounded mighty fine.
“And, yes, Hank Williams, Sr., is still dead, but we’re resurrectin’ some of his gospel tunes for this special show. This program is recorded, meanin’ when you hear this, we’re all doin’ something else, but right this minute our own Felton Ballard is here in the studio to sing for you. Many of you know Felton from the Saturday evenin’ singings over at the First Baptist. He plays these tunes in the original style, just like ol’ Hank sang ’em. We’re mighty proud of Felt. He starts off here with ‘I Saw the Light….’”
Winston hummed along with the tune. Felt sang it well. They had recorded the show back last winter. Miracle of modern life, the way music and voices could be recorded, and then all manner of changes made. Had not been like that back in his day, no, sir. Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn—they all went to the station and sang into the microphone before getting recorded.
Winston was not a fan of recording. It hindered him from adding in the clever things that came to his mind when he was listening on a Sunday morning in the bathroom.
“Well, folks, I want to tell you that our Sunday gospel hour today is brought to you thanks to Tinsley’s IGA, the All Church Pastors Association of Valentine and the Burger Barn. And you can hear Felton Ballard playing Hank Williams’s gospel live at the First Methodist Church this Sunday, where a special nine-thirty service is an entire singing service. Everyone’s invited.
“Up next we got ‘Are You Walking and a-Talking with the Lord?’ What a lot of people don’t know is that in his short career the original Hank Williams wrote some fifty gospel songs. Isn’t that right, Felt? You’re somethin’ of an expert on this, I understand.”
Felton answered, “Yes, sir. My wife sometimes sings with me, like Audrey sang with Hank…and Hank recorded a series of gospel albums as Luke the Drifter. I guess they thought it wouldn’t fly with his real name, with all his drinkin’ and carryin’ on.”
“Well, I can recall that he always sang one or more gospel tunes with Little Jimmy Dickens in his Grand Ole Opry appearances. This one is for all of my friends out there who remember the Grand Ole Opry in the old days. Go ahead, Felt.”
The music started, and Winston could sing along with this song, too. He remembered that this one had been a favorite of Coweta’s.
Suddenly he looked around and saw Coweta racing toward him in the garage, where he was tuning up the Ford. Her little black shoes flew over the ground. “Oh, Win! Look at this. Birdy sent it. Can we go? Oh, let’s! Won’t cost us nothin’ to stay with Birdy. Just you and me. Mama can take care of Freddie.”
The yellow playbill floated up before his eyes. Blurry. He had to squint, and then it came in plain: April 1,1951, Robinson Memorial Auditorium, Little Rock…Star! Hank Williams! and His Drifting Cowboys…also Lefty Frizzell…
Somehow, just as she could always work a miracle, she had made the phone call and gotten them tickets. “Yes, I did. Row five. Don’t ask what they cost.” She laughed, and the skirt of her dress swirled as she raced up the stairs to pack.
He shook his head. He never had been one to worry over money. It was her who worried over it.
“Not that time,” she said now, grinning at him right there in their bedroom. “I loved that Hank Williams.”
He never could understand it. “That Hank was so scrawny, he’d blow away in a good wind.”
Coweta smiled. There was a pink glow around her, pretty as could be. She said, “We had us a good time. Remember?”
“Yeah. I remember…we had to drive through five hours of sleet and rain and the windshield wipers actin’ up.”
“Oh, Winston. You never remember the important things. Like you held my hand, and we danced after, all alone. Why don’t you remember that?”
“That was near fifty years ago,” he defended. “I was born before ol’ Hank, and have lived far after him, and I got a lot clutterin’ my brain.” He pointed at the playbill in her hand. “I’ve outlived ever’body on that poster.”
“No, honey, you haven’t.”
“No kiddin’—really?”
“Now, why would I kid about such a thing? Don Helms was in the Drifting Cowboys then, and he is still alive—and playin’, even. He’s younger than you.”
“Isn’t ever’body?” Winston said, a little sadly. Then, “I’ve outlived so many, Coweta. Just so much has happened in my life. I can’t piece it all together half the time.”
“I know, honey.” Her hand came over his, so pale and soft against his leathery skin.
Little Town, Great Big Life Page 6
