Little Town, Great Big Life

by Curtiss Ann Matlock

  He thought a moment, then asked with a frown, “Why is it that she is drawn to a boy like Willie Lee?”

  “What you’re describin’ sounds like a normal relationship between boys and girls…and men and women,” Belinda said, then added philosophically, “There is no figurin’ it out.”

  He blinked, then said, “I guess you’re right, there. But Willie Lee is not quite normal.”

  “Well, I’m not certain I know what normal is.” Belinda thought about this for a moment, then added, “And I think you could do a lot worse. Willie Lee cares for Gabby, and he is more loyal and kind than anyone I’ve ever known.”

  She had experienced the urge to stick up for Willie Lee, and from there she became very aware of the child she carried in her womb. In fact, she moved to sit on her mother’s high stool. She really needed not to stand for long periods. She had to do her best by this child, especially considering all that could go wrong. She really wished she had not read as much as she had.

  All of a sudden, Reverend Smith smacked the counter with his palm, causing Belinda to jump.

  “You’re right!” he said with vigor, and then fell into his preaching voice. “‘For I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord! Plans for welfare and not for calamity…to give you a future and a hope.’ Jeremiah 29:11. I don’t know what God has planned for Gabby, nor for Willie Lee…and I don’t need to try to put this thing into the box of my limited thinking. All I need to do is believe that it is good.”

  He was on his feet and bringing change out of his pants pocket to toss on the counter. “I sure thank you, Miss Belinda, for makin’ me think.”

  “Uh…you’re welcome.” She hopped from the stool and picked up the money to put in the cash register.

  She gazed after the pastor as he went fairly blowing out the door. She could not imagine how she had made the pastor think what he did, but now she was thinking—of Willie Lee and Gabby, which made her think of herself and Lyle, and how no one could ever see herself and Lyle as a match.

  Certainly she and Lyle were not quite as extreme a case as the children, but it was true that Belinda had great intellect and Lyle did not, and Lyle knew it and never worried over it, just like Willie Lee.

  Willie Lee and Lyle had something else, something not so easily measured, but Belinda would define it as pureness of heart. True goodness.

  In that moment, she got so grateful for Lyle and so sentimental that she had to call him up and tell him how much she loved him.

  He answered in a sleepy voice, and she remembered that he was on night duty again and sleeping days.

  “Oh, sugar, I’m so sorry to wake you. I just wanted to tell you that I love you.”

  “That’s okay, honey…I love you, too.” That said, Lyle promptly hung up. He had the innocent sort of mind that never wondered if Belinda loved him. His love for her was unconditional and quite enough.

  Punching the off button on the phone, Belinda started to get back on the tall stool, then stopped. She eyed it with a raised brow, as if it were personally responsible for luring her. She’d had no business jumping down from that thing. It was her mother’s stool. The stool Belinda normally used was a lot shorter. Since her mother had left, Belinda had shoved the shorter stool on the other side of the small freezer. Now she dragged it out and put the tall stool away in its place.

  As she settled herself carefully on the shorter stool, she had tears in her eyes. She could not imagine why. She never got teary.

  Help me, God, she thought in a prayer that she could not quite admit to making. She had no right to pray, but she said in a whisper she did not know she spoke, “Help me to carry this baby, and it to be all right.”

  The drugstore soda fountain business was brisk. Repeatedly, the bell over the door and the one in the cash register drawer rang out, metal spoons clinked against glass, the soda machine whooshed and voices rose over it all. Whenever the weather got nicer, people came out more—especially the senior citizens, who predominated at the moment.

  Winston was at his normal table, along with his domino-playing buddies. They had a game going, while carrying on conversation with the men and women at an adjoining table, as well as a couple at the counter and whoever came through the drugstore door.

  The discussion centered around the prospect of the carousel park, as it had quickly become known, much to Everett Northrupt’s annoyance. Everett kept putting forth that they all needed to attend the city council meeting to be held that night. “We got to get a committee formed to handle this project before it gets any more out of hand.”

  He went on at length about all the points that he saw needed addressing, although it seemed to Belinda that he kept repeating himself. In his defense, some of this was necessary because of the people coming through the door and asking, “What are y’all talkin’ about?” Everett would then launch into his explanation and urge the person to come to the city council meeting.

  After this had gone on for some time, Belinda had the disconcerting realization that Winston was being unusually quiet, and that he was more or less allowing Everett to hold court.

  Shoving the cash register door closed, she walked to the magazines and peered around to the opposite side of the rack.

  There, as she had suspected, was Willie Lee sitting on the windowsill, with Munro at his feet. Munro lifted his head, causing Willie Lee to look her way.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be in school?” she asked, folding her arms.

  Willie Lee blinked his baby blues behind his thick glasses, guileless as always. “Yes. I left.”

  “Obviously.” She shook her head and turned back to the counter. Then she stopped and went to the boy. She stretched her hand to touch his soft blond hair. “You need a haircut,” she said, because something seemed required. She did not know what had taken hold of her, acting like this. She jerked her hand back and again folded her arms.

  Willie Lee tilted his head at her, then bent back over the magazine on his lap. Belinda looked at the magazine, too, the pages filled with colorful photographs of nimble boys on skateboards. Boys doing what Willie Lee could never do. How Willie Lee longed to be normal.

  Belinda’s hand went to her belly. She thought about the child she had never had, and about the child she carried now. She thought how Marilee had never known what had gone wrong to cause Willie Lee to be brain damaged.

  “Your ba-by is o-kay.”

  Belinda looked downward to see Willie Lee gazing up at her. His face so sweet.

  “It is?” Breathless.

  Willie Lee nodded. “She is a gir-l.”

  Belinda swallowed. “Will she be okay when she is born?”

  Willie Lee tilted his head. “I do not know. I cannot fore-tell the fu-ture,” he said pointedly.

  “Please don’t say anything, Willie Lee…don’t tell anyone about her.”

  “I will not,” he replied simply, his gaze returning to the magazine.

  She continued to hover, finally saying, “You want an ice-cream cone?”

  “Yes, ma-am. I would like a van-illa one.” He smiled brightly, jumped to his feet and carefully replaced the magazine, as she herself had taught him to do.

  As she made the boy a double-dip cone and fixed a small dish for the dog, she thought, A girl.

  She might possibly have done better to have a boy. A boy would have ended the long line of poor mothers.

  Would her darling girl make it through? That was the fear that now haunted Belinda—the worry that she would miscarry. She had begun to feel as if she were walking on eggshells, waiting for the horrible and inevitable. What if she told everyone about her pregnancy, and began hoping and planning, and she ended up losing the baby? Lyle would be crushed. And Belinda did not think she could stand it, either.

  The entire time she thought all this, she gazed at Willie Lee. She had no doubt whatsoever that he was correct in that she carried a girl child. Belinda was one of the few in town who knew of his talents. She had seen with her very own eyes a
baby horse hurt in a storm, and Willie Lee had healed it with his hands. All of them who knew about Willie Lee kept his secret, in order to protect him. And he protected many another person’s secret, she would imagine.

  All of a sudden she asked, “Is Winston okay, Willie Lee?”

  Willie Lee carefully licked his ice-cream cone. “Yes. He is o-kay.” Then, uncharacteristically, he added, “But he is ti-red.”

  Belinda looked over at Winston and saw this truth with fresh, hard awareness.

  And just then she saw Marilee walking past the front window. “Come on, Mr. Willie Lee,” she said, taking hold of the boy. “Bring your cone, and we’ll get you back to school. Don’t worry about Winston…I’ll see he gets home.”

  She and Willie Lee, with Munro scurrying along behind, hurried out the back and to Belinda’s car, while Marilee came marching in the front, asking immediately, “Have any of you seen Willie Lee?”

  The phone only got out half a ring before Belinda yanked it up, saying, “I’m ready.”

  “For what?” said a female voice.

  “Mother? I was expectin’ you to be Jim Rainwater. It’s time for my radio spot.” Belinda adjusted the pages of her notes in front of her on the desk.

  “Oh. Well, what are you goin’ to say on the spot today?”

  “I cannot give you an entire reading right now. Jim is goin’ to call any minute. I’ll need to hang up from you. Oh, there’s a beep now.”

  “Oh…well, then, I’ll call you back afterward. Bye, now.”

  There was something in her mother’s voice.

  “Mama—wait! Why don’t you call me back on my cell phone. I’ll leave it open for you to hear me do the radio spot on the landline.”

  Panicked at hearing the second call-waiting beep, Belinda did not hear her mother’s answer but pushed the flash button. “I’m ready!” she said again, before making certain it was Jim.

  Thankfully, Jim’s voice came over the line. “Ten seconds.”

  Her cell phone rang. She shoved the landline phone against her neck and pulled the cell phone from her purse. “Mama…I got you.”

  “It’s me. Jim,” he said in a perplexed voice.

  “Hi, again, sugar,” came her mother’s voice.

  She had Valentine on her left and France on her right.

  “Are you there, Belinda?” asked Jim.

  “Yes, I’m here.”

  “I hear you, sugar.”

  “Be quiet, Mama. You’ll get me confused.”

  Blaine’s Drugstore theme music played in her left ear, with Jim’s recorded voice. “This week’s About Town…”

  “Whew!” she said to the radio audience. “How many of you ever have had a regular phone on one ear and a cell phone on the other? Well, that was me just now. My mother is listening in from France on the cell phone as I speak to you.”

  From the cell phone sitting on the desk, she heard her mother yelling, “Tell everyone hello for me!”

  “My mother, Vella Blaine, says hello from France.” How did she get herself into these predicaments?

  “In case you are confused, this is Belinda Blaine with About Town and Beyond from Blaine’s Drugstore and Soda Fountain, where this week we are runnin’ a special on all greeting cards at five percent off. Spring is such a good time to stock up for your resolution to send more cards. We also are having a special on the Reacher at thirty percent off. The Reacher is a handy-dandy gadget to reach those things on high shelves, or on the floor, for those of you who have a hard time bending over. I think they also make an unusual kid’s toy. I had to hang them out of the way of the kids who kept coming in here and playin’ with ’em.

  “For the About Town news, we know—for those of you, like my mother, who have been elsewhere and may not have heard—Everett Northrupt was appointed chairman of the Carousel Park Centennial Celebration Committee at Monday’s city council meeting. The meeting had a good crowd, who turned out to participate in confirming the decision to construct a carousel and carousel building to celebrate Valentine’s hundredth anniversary. What I have to say to that is, people, get busy! There’s a long way to go and a short time to get there!

  “And here is a news flash, heard first here from your hometown drugstore—Tate Holloway told me only an hour ago that he personally spoke with Reba McEntire, and she has agreed to appear at the dedication of our carousel park.”

  Her mother’s voice squawked from the cell phone. Belinda reached over and turned down the speaker volume. She was tickled and thought it was too bad that she could not do that in person to more people.

  Dr. Zwolle perused Belinda’s chart. “Your blood pressure is in the high-normal range, but it’s okay.”

  “Your nurse causes it.”

  “She does mine, too.”

  Belinda watched the doctor’s face as the woman continued to read the chart.

  “Your weight gain is right on track, but your sugar is climbing, and we do not want that. Are you exercising…walking?” The doctor raised an eyebrow at her.

  “I’m tryin’. It’s not somethin’ I’ve ever been especially good at. And I guess I sort of worry about the jarring.”

  The doctor’s eyebrow rose again.

  “You know, when I walk. I get afraid I will shake the baby loose.”

  She knew it was silly, but she could not seem to help herself. She had taken to practically walking on tiptoe. Once Oran Lackey had noticed and said, “Belinda, do you have blisters on your feet? We got in some new Dr. Scholl’s…those new gel pads.”

  The doctor said, “No, you will not shake that baby loose. At this point walking is the best thing you can do—for you and the baby.”

  “Okay.” She tried to believe it.

  The doctor’s eyes returned to Belinda’s chart. “Well, I want you to watch your sugar and carbohydrate intake more carefully. You’re doing okay now, and we want to keep you that way.”

  “Oh,” Belinda said.

  “You can look up on the Net about a good diet. The simplest thing is to cut out most of the commercial breads and baked goods, and empty sugars. Stick mainly to lean meats, fresh fruits and vegetables—all you want. And cheeses…but not too much cream cheese,” the doctor ended as she closed the chart.

  Belinda wondered what she was to eat cream cheese on.

  “Get your husband to join you on the diet—tell him I said so,” the doctor said with a grin as she and Belinda both left the examination room.

  “I haven’t told him yet, about the baby.” The words popped out before she thought, and then she saw the doctor’s expression. “I…I want to make sure that I don’t…lose her. He’ll be very hurt if I do.”

  Dr. Zwolle looked at her as if she had lost her mind. “Mrs. Blaine, I strongly urge you to tell your husband. You are both in this together, you know.”

  Just then Nurse Betty called out, and the doctor excused herself.

  Belinda gazed at the two women at the desk, then abruptly turned and headed quickly away down the hallway. With relief she turned the corner and spied the sign for the laboratory. She dashed inside, like a sneak thief looking for a place to hide, and hoped the doctor would not come after her.

  “Where’ve you been?” Lyle asked. He was at the counter making one of his blender health drinks when she came into the kitchen. She had forgotten it was his day off.

  “Oh, up to Lawton, shoppin’.”

  She removed her jacket, wrapped her arms around him and leaned against his strong back for a moment. Then she opened the refrigerator. Her eye fell on the container of strawberry cream cheese. She closed the door and took a banana from the basket of fruit.

  “What’s that?”

  “A banana.” She gave a puzzled frown at the question.

  “No, not that—that bandage on your arm.”

  “Oh…it was time for my hormone check,” she said, pulling off the bandage and throwing it in the trash. A sure way to stop Lyle’s questions was to give mention to women’s hormones.

  She wa
s turning into a liar.

  She stopped in the doorway of the room Lyle had converted to his workout space.

  The room that would be the nursery.

  “Sugar, I’m gonna work on some accounts for a bit.”

  “O-kay.” He pressed the bar over his head as he spoke. His muscles bulged beneath his T-shirt.

  It was on her tongue. You’re going to be a daddy.

  The words evaporated somewhere downward.

  In the living room, she sat at her small desk and opened the lid of her notebook computer. She glanced in the direction of the workout room, hearing the clink of weights.

  She straightened her spine and firmly punched the button. The computer sprang to life.

  Fingers on the keys, she typed. A listing popped up, and she began to click and read screen after screen. After the age of thirty-five, birth defects rise…miscarriage in first trimester…second trimester…diabetes…refined sugar…glycemic index…gluten ataxia…blood pressure…mercury poisoning, peptides, contaminated this and contaminated that. One page led to another. She wanted to stop reading but kept on, as compelled as any addict.

  Some ten minutes later, Lyle came in the room. “Honey, you want somethin’ to drink?”

  Belinda closed the computer lid with a snap. “Yes…that would be lovely. I’ll come find somethin’ with you.”

  She was sure her blood pressure was up. After all she had read, it had to be. The recommendation on one page for pregnant women over thirty-five was to get a blood pressure monitor. She had the great urge that minute to race down to the store and get one off the shelf.

  Well, that was the end of her reading. As far as she was concerned, she did not need to look up any more information about her health, pregnancy or diet. It was all just scaring her to death.

  “I’ll have one of your health drinks,” she said to Lyle.