He stared at her with wide eyes, then said with delight, “I’ll put an apple in it for you…and how about—”
“No.” She held up a hand and turned her head. “Don’t tell me what you put in it. I don’t want to know.”
Lyle…sugar, I have somethin’ to tell you. It seems that we are goin’ to have a baby.
She gazed in the bathroom mirror. She did not have to tell him about the abortion. Why did she think she had to do that?
Well, now the doctor knew it and might say something.
Of course the doctor won’t say anything. What are you waiting for? Just tell him. Let yourself be happy and let Lyle be happy.
We’re goin’ to have a little girl. Willie Lee said so.
All right…all right, I will tell him. We are in this together. And if I miscarry, he will find out, and that certainly won’t be a good time.
A slight breeze from the open window fluttered her peignoir as she stepped into the bedroom. The breeze held the sublime scent of early summer and caused Belinda to sneeze. Without realizing, she instantly held her belly in the protective manner that she had now adopted.
Lyle was in the bed, turned on his side.
She slipped between the soft sheets, whispering, “Lyle, honey…”
He was asleep. His long lashes lay nearly on his cheeks. She gazed at him for a minute. He was so beautiful.
Well, she was not going to wake him.
Pastor Smith’s words had half stuck in her mind. I have plans for you, says the Lord…or something like that.
She found her Bible under a pile of Money magazines, which did not seem to reflect well on her. Where had the pastor said that verse was from? The Bible had a concordance in the back.
There it was…Jeremiah… “Twenty-nine, eleven…twenty-niiine, e-leven…” she whispered. Then, “‘For I know the thoughts and plans that I have for you, says the Lord, thoughts and plans for welfare and peace and not for evil, to give you hope in your final outcome.’”
Well.
She scratched her head and slowly lowered herself to the couch. Hope flickered, and the picture of a nursery floated into her mind. Disney forest animals came to life on the wall.
The next minute the memory of what she had done came flooding back, pushing out the Disney forest animals.
If God had ever entertained good plans for her, how was it that she had ended up with an abortion?
Buddy Wyatt, the UPS man, brought her order of two walking outfits and two pairs of shoes to match. One set was pink and white, and the other gray and yellow. Belinda was pleased to find the shades did not clash with her hair. She believed in dressing correctly for every endeavor. Dressing correctly gave a person fortitude. Tennis shoes sure had changed since her teenage years. These had a wide tread for walking but resembled cute Mary Janes.
Arlo and Oran Lackey, the only occupants of the drugstore at that moment, both stared at her.
“I’m takin’ up walkin’. It’s healthy.”
Oran hurried to open the door for her.
Whatever got into people? It wasn’t such a big deal.
She found that she still walked rather gingerly. The doctor may have said that she could not jar loose the child, but all that warning information on the pamphlets and Web sites was simply not reassuring.
In the first minute, she remembered why she did not much like walking in Oklahoma—windy days.
Peggy Sue Langston, the home economics teacher, brought a group of her female students into the soda fountain after school. She bought a round of ice-creams cones.
“Oh, that’s one too many,” she said, looking from the waffle cone Belinda handed over the counter to the girls scattered behind her. “Yes…I’m sorry. I guess I must have counted wrong. I’ll pay for it.”
Belinda waved her away. “No problem. I probably counted wrong.” She settled on her stool and began to lick the ice cream. Vanilla, her favorite. Except as she ate, she felt a little nauseous.
All of a sudden, she caught sight of her image in the mirror on the wall behind the sundae dishes. You can’t have that! It was Dr. Zwolle’s voice.
She had three more quick licks, then offered the cone to Corrine, who held one hand to her stomach and the other up like a stop sign. “No, way. You are sure smart to say we can have anything we want in the soda fountain. I probably won’t ever be able to eat ice cream again.”
Neither will I, Belinda thought dismally as she threw the cone in the trash.
CHAPTER 12
Phone Calls
SUMMER VACATION HAD ARRIVED, AND CORRINE was at her first full day of work at the drugstore alone. It was just after nine, the early-morning rush over, and not one customer for the past twenty minutes. Corrine had cleaned everything there was to clean and replenished everything there was to replenish. Just then the phone delighted her by ringing.
“Blaine’s Drugstore and Soda Fountain,” said Corrine, with a snap in her voice. “Your hometown store serving your needs.”
“Who is this?”
“Corrine. Who is this?” She frowned into the phone.
“Sugar, this is your aunt Vella,” said the voice, all warm and amused.
“Hey, Aunt Vella!” said Corrine in the same manner, quite delighted. Vella Blaine was her mother’s and Aunt Marilee’s aunt, and one of Corrine’s favorite people. Aunt Vella was always doing and saying something interesting.
“What are you doin’ answerin’ the drugstore phone, honey?”
Corrine explained about her new job. She was a little disappointed that Belinda had not relayed the important information to her aunt.
“Well, I know the store will benefit from your work,” Aunt Vella said. “Can you hear me okay? I’m still all the way over in France.”
“You were a little fuzzy, but it’s better now.”
“It’s the cell phone, but I guess we’re expectin’ a lot, given the distance. Is Belinda there?”
“No, ma’am, she’s out. She went to get her hair done and some other things. You might call her cell phone.”
“Well, sugar, that is the problem. My cell phone gave up the ghost and took all the phone numbers with it.” She went on about this predicament at length, telling of her many frustrations at either getting the phone fixed or getting another one. She was at that moment using Miss Lillian’s cell phone, and said, “Lillian is not a habitually generous person.”
Corrine knew Belinda’s number from memory. She was able to provide step-by-step directions for the older woman to store the number in Miss Lillian’s cell phone. Then Corrine ended up going through the phone book and giving the older women the numbers for six people. Twice during this exercise, customers came in and Corrine handed them the phone to talk to Aunt Vella while she made their soda fountain orders. Before Aunt Vella hung up, she requested to speak to Oran Lackey. Corrine walked the phone over to the pharmacy storeroom, where Oran was sitting in the recliner and watching the Discovery Channel.
Miss Julia Jenkins-Tinsley came in. She wore her summer U.S.P.S. uniform of shorts with bobby socks and walked as if she thought she was really cute. She passed the mail across the soda fountain counter and ordered a Coca-Cola to go. “Put a lemon in it. I want to try how Vella said they serve Cokes over there in Europe.”
“Did Miss Vella call you?” Corrine asked.
“Uh-huh. Right before I came down here. It was real nice talkin’ to her. I can’t imagine who would think to put a lemon in a Coca-Cola, but keep an open mind, I say.”
Corrine prepared the fountain Coke with a fresh lemon slice, then turned to find Miss Julia had gone off to the pharmacy shelves. The petite woman returned with a box she surreptitiously slipped across the counter.
“I know Oran’s back with the TV, but…” Just then there was a strange buzzing, and Miss Julia quickly unsnapped a case on her belt and jerked out a cell phone. “Postmaster here.”
Corrine picked up the box to ring up the woman’s purchases. It was a package of Enzyte.
&
nbsp; Focusing on the cash register, Corrine punched the buttons, then slipped the box into a small Blaine’s Drugstore bag, managing not to laugh her head off.
Miss Julia snapped her phone shut, paid and said, “I count on your discretion, Corrine.”
Well, shoot. She had been imagining telling Belinda right off.
“Yes, ma’am,” she said firmly, looking the woman in the eye. The drugstore had a sacred duty to its customers. Miss Belinda had impressed that on them all.
There were a couple of lists kept between the cash register and the telephone. One was a list of people who had a charge account with the drugstore, and the other was a list of people who were never charged at all. Three of those people came in that day. Two were children from one family, who got ice-cream cones, and the third was old Miss Minnie Oakes.
Miss Minnie appeared in her right mind at that moment, because she got a bottle of body lotion and actually paid Oran for it at the rear counter. Corrine saw this, and then watched Miss Minnie go to the magazine rack and take a magazine and put it under her sweater. Then the elderly woman waved and called to Corrine, “Tell Vella I said hello, when she calls. I hear she is callin’ everyone.”
Obviously Miss Minnie knew what she was doing, and that she could do it.
Mr. Winston and Willie Lee and Munro were not on any list, but Belinda said she never did charge them for anything. Winston sometimes paid; other times he would say, “I’m family.”
The man who picked up pop cans around town showed up. Corrine saw him through the screen when she propped open the rear door. She hesitated, not quite knowing what would be polite. Belinda had not said anything specific about him.
Then she went to the soda fountain and put together a barbecue sandwich basket, without saying anything to Arlo, who had come in to help with the lunch crowd. She took the basket quickly to the back door. “Uh…would you like a barbecue sandwich?”
“Thank you, missy,” said the man very politely as he walked across the alleyway and took the basket. He was not as old as she had thought.
Corrine saw that he had a small paperback book sticking out of his jacket pocket. Walking Across Egypt. Mr. Winston owned the book, and Corrine had read it. It was good. Mr. Winston laughed out loud every time he read it.
Corrine could tell right off that Miss Belinda was upset about something. She came blowing in the door, said, “Hey, Oran…Mr. Murphy,” to the pharmacist and a customer at the health-aids shelf, but continued straight toward the soda fountain, where she threw her large purse underneath the counter so hard it about bounced.
“Fayrene has gone and done it again,” Miss Belinda said in a hushed sort of voice that only Corrine could hear. She stuck a foam cup under the latte machine spout. “You would think that after all her failures with men, she would not be so silly…although why I would think that, I do not know.”
“What’s she done?” Corrine asked, speaking in a hushed voice, too.
“Oh, she’s gone and turned over all her accounting to that Andy fellow she’s got over there. I mean, he’s got online access to the café bank account, is handlin’ all of it. I was just down at the bank, and ran into him and Fayrene. She has lost any shred of sense that she ever possessed over him. She doesn’t know anything about him—no one knows anything about him. And her record with men is just dismal.”
Miss Belinda sat herself on her stool and sipped her latte, and spoke about Miss Fayrene’s former husbands and boyfriends. “It is genetic,” said Belinda. “She got it from her mother. Her mother moved all over West Texas with wildcatters, and was married and divorced four times, and never found one of them to take care of her.”
Miss Belinda’s purse began ringing. “Oh, gosh, I’ll bet that’s my mother. She called me earlier, and I didn’t pick up. Will you hand me my cell phone, sugar?”
Corrine retrieved the phone and handed it over, then turned away and focused on counting and straightening the money in the cash register. Her thoughts were full with her mother, whose record with men could also be counted as dismal. What did that say about her own future?
She was deciding her future, Corrine thought firmly.
“I need four cold sweet teas and three milk shakes to go…Is Belinda in?” Inez Cooper barely slowed down on her way to Miss Belinda’s office.
“Yes, ma’am.” The woman had long legs and was already going through the storage room doorway.
A few minutes later, as Corrine served two teenage girls and Mr. Fred Grace, who sat and talked to Corrine in a most boring fashion, the two women emerged, with Miss Belinda leading the way to the herb and vitamin shelves. She packaged something up for Miz Cooper, and came to the soda fountain cash register, where Miz Cooper paid and picked up her drinks to go.
“You know what’s the savin’ grace?” Belinda said in a low voice to Corrine.
“What?”
“People come in here to get free advice, but they always cover themselves by purchasing food.”
The phone rang, and Corrine answered it. “Blaine’s Drugstore.” Having said the spiel a thousand times, she was no longer thrilled with it. She stuck the receiver into her neck while she gave two junior-high boys their milk shakes and took payment.
“Corrine…it’s Jojo.”
“Oh, hi. You want somethin’? I’m kinda busy, and my feet feel like they’ve been run over.” A man gazed at her impatiently and tapped a five-dollar bill on the counter.
“No. I just wanted to tell you before you heard it from somebody else. We all just found out—Larry Joe and Miss Huggins got engaged last night.”
“What?”
“They got engaged. I just found out that Larry Joe told Mama at lunch.”
“I’m in a hurry, kid. I got to make my shift,” said the man across the counter.
“There isn’t anything else to tell you, ’Rin,” said Jojo in her ear. “That’s all there is.”
Not ten minutes later, three chattering women entered the drugstore. It was Monica Huggins, with two other teachers—Miz Fields, the Spanish teacher, and Miz Langston, who was the most scatterbrained home economics teacher in the history of the world.
The women took a table at the rear of the soda fountain.
Corrine finished serving a barbecue basket and ice-cream sundae, and went to wait on the women, and to see this engagement ring for herself. Her eyes sought out Miss Huggins’s hand, but the woman kept it under the table.
It had to be a mistake.
Miz Langston said she thought she wanted a chocolate milk shake, and Miz Fields said she knew she wanted a banana split, with extra nuts. Miz Huggins said she thought she would just get a Coke. She still didn’t bring that hand out from beneath the table.
“Monica…this is a celebration, and I’m payin’,” said Miz Langston. “Get somethin’ celebratory.”
“I am celebratin’,” said Miss Huggins. “I’m celebratin’ and watching my figure, too. I don’t want to be a fat bride.”
At that moment, just like a trumpet had sounded, she brought her hand out and displayed the ring on her finger. The diamond caught the light.
The next instant Corrine was looking into Miss Huggins’s eyes, which were straight on her like two pinpoints. Miss Huggins said, “We are celebratin’ my engagement to Larry Joe Darnell. I want a large Coke, please.”
Corrine turned and went back to the soda fountain and began putting together the orders, while in her mind she saw the look in Miss Huggins’s eyes.
There were lemon slices sitting there on the cutting board. She plopped two into the middle of the ice in Miss Huggins’s Coca-Cola. This apparently ended up going unnoticed. The woman never said a word about it.
Belinda was snuggled on the couch in her pajamas, watching the late movie on television and eating plain organic goat yogurt over blueberries, when the telephone rang. She checked the caller ID and saw Corrine Pendley’s name.
But across the line came, “Miss Belinda…this is Paris…”
Belinda set asi
de her bowl. “Yes, sugar.”
“My car broke down…and we—Corrine’s with me—and we need some help, Miss Belinda.”
“Where are you?” Belinda was already off the couch.
The girls were all the way up in Lawton. Half an hour’s drive with her foot pushing the accelerator over the speed limit. A spring storm had come in. Lightning flashed, rain pelted and the windshield wipers thumped as Belinda peered hard through the glass and the glare of oncoming lights.
There was Paris’s car next to the curb of a side street.
Belinda directed her own car over in front of the battered Impala. As she gathered her breath to get out in the rain, she saw the dark figures approaching in her side-view mirror. She just knew it, and when they threw themselves inside, drips going everywhere, she could smell it.
“Hey, Miss Belinda,” Corrine said from the backseat. “Thank you for comin’.”
“I’m sorry, Miss Belinda, but I thought it best not to call Miz Holloway.” Paris did not look at her. The girl’s newly bleached spiky hair gleamed in the interior light just before she closed the door.
As Belinda shifted into gear, she remembered that it had been raining the last time she had picked Paris up from her broken-down car. Was there something about the girl that rain followed her?
Without a word, Belinda headed to her house. Apparently the girls knew enough not to question her. Then she looked in the rearview mirror to see Corrine’s head back against the seat.
“It’s sure bright in here,” said Corrine, blinking in an unfocused sort of way.
Belinda sat them at her kitchen table and served them hot coffee.
“I don’ drink coffee,” Corrine said, looking down at the cup.
“You do right now. Drink it.”
Paris picked up her cup and went to sipping.
“Okay, tell me where you were that served you alcohol.”
Two pairs of eyes looked at her. Corrine’s drifted.
Little Town, Great Big Life Page 13
