Little Town, Great Big Life

by Curtiss Ann Matlock

  During the rest of the program, Everett played straight man to Winston’s jokes in a contented manner he had not before known. He was flying high on being the straight man, on giving Winston the majority of the airtime until just thirty seconds before the ending reveille, when he remembered his own coming show.

  He got control of the microphone. “Stay tuned for the Everett in the Morning show. We’ve got big news. A complete carousel has been found and purchased. We’re going to talk with Mr. John Cole Berry, who will be calling from Chicago, where he found the carousel. We’ll also be talking to Mrs. Vella Blaine, who will be dedicating the laying of the foundation of the carousel building this afternoon. We’ll see you right here at 1550 on the radio dial…Everett in the Morning.”

  He had learned from Winston to repeat his name, and he was getting good at it.

  While commercials and public announcements played, Everett sat back, wiped his face with a handkerchief and looked over at Winston.

  Winston looked very old.

  “I missed you this morning, Winston,” Everett blurted. “I don’t think I could do the show without you.”

  Winston lazily looked at him. “Oh, I know it’ll be hard, but you’ve been watchin’ me for all this time. You’ll get it done.”

  This reply was more disconcerting than reassuring. Everett wanted Winston to say that he was going to be there to do the show forever. And Winston’s mildness was aggravating.

  Then Winston said, “I’m mighty proud to share the airwaves with you, Ev.”

  “Well…well, likewise.” Everett ducked his head and pretended to read the papers he assembled for his upcoming program.

  Passing behind Everett as he left, Winston squeezed the other man’s shoulder. Everett swallowed hard.

  Jim Rainwater called over, “Everett, you got five seconds.”

  It turned out that Winston had not actually left the station building. All he had done was get a cup of coffee. As Everett got John Cole Berry on the phone and introduced him to the audience—“Mr. Berry and I have been working together on the carousel committee”—Winston stepped over to the microphone to say, “Hey, there, John Cole, how you doin’ up there in Chicago?”

  And darned if Winston didn’t manage to end up dominating Everett’s interview of John Cole, even from Everett’s smaller chair, which Winston slipped into.

  “Describe this carousel you’ve found, J.C. We’d like some details.”

  “Well, it’s all wooden horses. We didn’t open all the crates, but we’re pretty sure it is all horses, anyway. The figures need some work—”

  “You said the carousel seems to need mostly painting,” Everett interjected, attempting to get back into the conversation.

  “Yes. It is being shipped today to the restorer in California.”

  Winston said, “Tell us about this restorer. Is it a company that does only carousels? Didn’t know there was such.”

  “Yes, sir. They specialize in building and restoring carousels. They have done…”

  Winston leaned forward, both arms on the table. Everett looked at him, and then sat back and let Winston and John Cole talk.

  When Vella Blaine arrived at the studio for her interview, she looked around with a puzzled expression. “Where’s Winston? I thought he was doin’ your show today.”

  “He was,” said Everett. “He’s gone now, but don’t expect it to be for good.”

  Willie Lee found his mother dressing his two little sisters in their room. His eyes widened a little at the sight of her—her hair was on end, and she had on a red sweatshirt and Papa Tate’s pajama bottoms. She was having a very hard time coping with Corrine having gone away to school. That was what she would say to Papa Tate: “I’m havin’ such a hard time copin’ with Corrine gone.”

  Although every time Corrine called, and especially during her first weekend home, his mother made a point to be all happy and pleasant. But when Corrine was gone, his mother cried into Papa Tate’s shirt.

  Several times Corrine had called and asked Willie Lee, “How is Aunt Marilee really doin’…? How are you all gettin’ on?”

  Willie Lee replied, “We are do-ing good. Mo-ther is cop-ing.”

  Gabby had helped him with the statement. She had said it would be kind, and he was getting much better at lying. He wanted Corrine to be happy, but he knew she was not. He could hear her unhappiness over the phone line, but she would only say, “I’m doin’ real good at school. This is a great opportunity.”

  He did not know how something could be a good thing when so many people were not happy about it.

  He knew his mother was not going to be happy when he told her, “Mo-ther, I am not go-ing to scho-ol.”

  “What? Of course you are. We’ve been through this, Willie Lee. I know you don’t like school…I know it is hard, but you need to go because it will help you to grow up. You’ve only been going a few weeks this year—it will get better, I know it will.”

  He had rehearsed with Gabby all of what he needed to say. “May-be that is true, but now I am go-ing to be with Mr. Winston. That is what I need to do now.”

  His mother looked over from pulling up Victoria’s pants. She regarded him, and he regarded her, each speaking without words in the way of certain mothers and sons, and each knowing they were stepping into a new place.

  “All right,” Marilee said. “We’ll try it for a bit.”

  Her son gave a rare wide smile that touched Marilee to her core. He came and hugged her, and she hugged him, letting him go by only the strongest effort. Her son had his own life to live. She watched him race away, listened to his footsteps pound and him call out, “Pa-pa Tate…Mis-ter Win-ston! Wait for meee!”

  “Safe in the arms of God,” she whispered.

  Leaving her little girls’ room, she paused to look into Winston’s bedroom. It was like looking back seventy-five years. There was not even a television. She made up the covers on the old spool bed. Then she paused to look over the pictures on the aged oak veneer dresser—his family in frames a hundred years old. Glancing around the room again, she rubbed her shoulders, feeling as if there were voices and emotions from the past all around her. People who had lived and loved and left their mark forever, as everyone did, one way or another.

  Later Marilee went to the telephone and called the school to say that Willie Lee would not be there. “We are goin’ t’ home-school Willie Lee for a while,” she said. She had not expected a problem, and there was none. The school officials had long ago given up trying to make Willie Lee be a normal boy and were relieved to have any sort of a break from the attempt.

  Willie Lee again became Winston’s shadow. He could be seen pushing the old man in the wheelchair or simply walking along beside him, and always a little dog following at their heels. As the days passed, the old man was seen more and more leaning on the boy. Every once in a while, after school and on weekends, they were joined by a small curly haired girl.

  CHAPTER 17

  Second Chances

  BELINDA STRAIGHTENED THE MAGAZINES AND stacks of newspapers on the far side of the magazine rack. Eye falling to the Valentine Voice, she took up a copy. Her mother, stylishly dressed but wearing a hard hat, smiled out from the front page. She had been formally initiating the start of construction on the carousel building, which was well under way. Not shown were a small dozer and cement truck, and the crew of eight who had paused out of the way of the camera.

  Just then voices floated over from the soda fountain—her mother, Jaydee and Winston. Winston was reading the newspaper article aloud and offering his comments, as he liked to do, to which her mother would throw in a c’est la vie or a oui now and again.

  Since her return, her mother kept peppering her speech with French. She would say, “Bon-jour, sugar,” and “Par-don, honey.” “Well, merci beaucoup, darlin’,” and “à tout à l’heure!”

  Intent to always secure his position with her, Jaydee had learned a few phrases. The one he seemed to remember best was, “Dar
lin’, je t’aime à la folie!”

  Winston, being quite jealous of Vella and Jaydee’s relationship, got so annoyed at that moment that he came out with, “Here’s a French word for you—idiots! Stop it or I’m gonna have t’ slap you silly.”

  Belinda looked around the end of the magazine rack and saw her mother put her hand to her hip in the habit she had, replying, “Désolée…excusez-moi!”

  Belinda came around the long magazine rack, saying to no one in particular, “And this is from whom I come.” She crossed the soda fountain area and entered the back room and her partitioned office, where she dropped gently into her chair and propped her feet on a small milk crate.

  Absently stroking her burgeoning belly, she gazed at the rusted and filmy window high on the wall, hearing her mother’s voice far in the front of the store, and frowning as jumbled thoughts on being a mother, courtesy of her own mother, tumbled across her mind.

  After some minutes, she realized that the tiny girl moved within her, seemingly in rhythm to her mother’s voice.

  Wasn’t that the way for all women? Belinda thought. Before we are even born, we begin moving to the voices of our mothers, our grandmothers and all those women who came before.

  “Yes, I will marry you,” Vella Blaine said at last. It had been coming for some time. She inclined her head and cast Jaydee Mayhall a sultry smile while fanning her face with a delicate scented handkerchief.

  The two sat in the glider on Vella’s rear flagstone patio in the cooling evening twilight.

  Jaydee was so thrilled that he could hardly think straight. His eyes moved to the beautiful night coming in the eastern sky. A faint late-summer moon was rising. He pointed it out to Vella, and, sitting there gazing at the sky with her, a humbleness came over him. He felt the mercy of God. Heaven knew he had been a womanizer and generally rowdy man until age had begun to catch up with him. He had done nothing to deserve Vella, but she was going to marry him, and he would not have to be old alone. He was going to have a good, strong woman to help him.

  “We will need a prenuptial agreement,” said Vella, whose thoughts were quite straight, and mostly on her grandchild. It had been Vella’s experience that men came and went, but this grandchild would be around the rest of Vella’s life.

  Jaydee nodded and said, “Good idea.” Jaydee was a secure man about money.

  They chatted easily about the matter of their union. Vella would take Jaydee’s name, a practical decision all the way around, as she saw it. They would live together in Vella’s house. Jaydee would sell his, even though his was modern and large and with every convenience. He would keep the Mayhall family farm and old farmhouse; that could be his retreat. Vella wanted to do some traveling, sometimes alone, sometimes she would want Jaydee’s company. He agreed. He wanted her to join him in some horse activities, and she wanted him to help with her rose garden. Friday night would be date night, a commitment, and there would be candlelight and wine often. They would each keep their own finances but work out an equitable sharing of the utility bills. They would give time and money to church as a couple.

  Vella sighed with contentment. “It’s all so much easier now, at this time of life.”

  Jaydee agreed with a smile.

  Vella thought him the most good-natured man, especially for an attorney, that she had ever known. She supposed all the young hot girls with whom he had been involved the first half of his life had worn him out.

  Then Vella had a thought. “Let me speak to Belinda before we announce our marriage.”

  Jaydee’s eyebrows went up. “What if she doesn’t like it?” It was no secret that Belinda had never much liked him.

  “Oh, I’m not askin’ her permission. It’s just that I want to include her.” Vella bit her bottom lip, then her eyes lit up. “Belinda can be my matron of honor. She might like that. It will mean a new dress and shoes, and I’m buyin’.”

  When Jaydee suggested spending the night, Vella told him, “No…we are goin’ to be grandparents. We must set a good example.”

  She watched him take that in with a startled blink. Leading him to the front door, she kissed him with a passion that she knew surprised him. At her age, it was often expected for passion to have passed.

  “You’re gonna love bein’ Papa, mon cher,” she said into his ear.

  He went away looking a little dazed, as she had intended.

  Sitting at her dressing table, Vella unscrewed the cap of a crystal jar while gazing into the mirror.

  There was a rumor going around town that she had undergone cosmetic surgery while she was in France. She looked that much improved. She admitted to discovering a line of Swiss facial products that she promised to carry in the drugstore.

  Belinda had advertised the products on the About Town radio spot, saying, “I do not know if my mother had a face-lift. Please stop askin’ me. Ask Lillian Jennings.”

  Lillian Jennings told everyone, “I was not with Vella for days on end. For all I know she had everything lifted.”

  It was true that Vella looked rejuvenated. That was what months away from the rigors of everyday life, doing nothing a person did not want to do—not counting having to listen to Lillian talking about history or money—did for a person.

  A long time ago Vella’s grandmother had told her that life was made up of time, dirt and money. Her grandmother had said, “Too much or not enough of any of those is the constant sorrow of the heart and wears on the body.”

  The dirt that Vella thought of now as she creamed her face was that of the failings and disappointments, and downright sins, accumulated as one went through life. One’s soul became as tarnished as the cabinet door where the hand constantly reached for the everyday dishes. No matter how hard a person tried to keep things clean, dirt seeped in, like grit through windows in the Oklahoma wind.

  The lengthy months in France, away from her everyday life, had turned out to provide exactly what Vella had needed to cleanse her body and soul. The trip had given her the distance she needed to see herself and her life clearly.

  Brushing her hair briskly, she thought, I’m older, yes, but so very wiser.

  And her failures—she leaned close into the mirror, studying the lines on her face. She had earned every line, and they were precious. Just so the failures, which had helped to make her who she was.

  Perhaps it was the promise of the grandchild that had as much to do with her renewed liveliness. What a surprise it had been to find out about Belinda’s pregnancy! She had thought she would never be a grandmother, and now here it was, a second chance to get things right. To make up for her past as a poorly attentive mother, about which she had no illusions.

  Now, with the coming grandchild, Vella was certain that she could be a grand dame of a grandmother as she never had been a mother. And maybe, just maybe, her granddaughter would be a bridge to a new relationship with Belinda. Maybe it was not too late for Vella to be an attentive mother to her adult daughter in a way that she had not been able to be in Belinda’s childhood.

  Maybe, Vella thought as she took up a magnifying mirror to pluck her eyebrows, she had finally grown up enough to equal Belinda.

  Setting aside the mirror, she reached for the phone and dialed. “Belinda?”

  “Yes, Mother. Who else would answer my phone at nine o’clock at night?”

  Vella ignored the comment and launched in with, “Sugar, I just had an idea. I want to be called Big Mama instead of Gramma or Granny, or any of those other names. You’ll be Mama, and I’ll be Big Mama.”

  “Ah-huh,” said Belinda after a few seconds of silence. “Big Mama is for great-grandmothers.”

  “Well, honey, I’m not goin’ to live that long. You’ve gotten too late a start.”

  Two days passed, and she still did not tell Belinda about her marriage plans. It was the most surprising thing, and silly, too, but she found herself a little afraid to tell Belinda. It was the prospect of doing one more thing to disappoint her daughter.

  Second chances app
eared to carry with them the lessons from the first.

  “Are you goin’ to tell her this afternoon?” Jaydee asked.

  They had just come back from observing the work on the carousel park, which was progressing at an astoundingly good rate.

  “I could.” Vella’s gaze slid to the drugstore window, where sunlight fell on the display of lotions and creams, and the two fine perfumes Vella had brought from France. “It should be a good time—slow, before the kids get out of school.” She spoke absently, her thoughts picturing Belinda.

  “Do you think she will object?”

  Her gaze came round to see his eyes intent upon her. “Not really…it’s just that, well, she’s pregnant and a little grumpy.”

  “Belinda has always been a little grumpy.”

  “Oh, honey, you do not understand the combustion of pregnancy, hormones and emotions.” Jaydee had little experience with a pregnant woman. “Yesterday she smacked Larry Joe Darnell with a newspaper.”

  “What for?”

  “Oh, he was wearin’ some knit shirt with a collar that Belinda took exception to. Preppy, she called him. Basically, she does not approve of his new close haircut, nor the woman to whom he is engaged.”

  “She has strong opinions…like her mother.” Jaydee grinned.

  Vella adored that Jaydee had such lovely white teeth, especially for a man his age. She said, “Well, I’m not askin’ her opinion about our marriage. I am simply goin’ to tell her and ask her to join us as my matron of honor.” She put a hand to his chest. “You don’t need to come in. I want to speak to her alone. I’ll call you after. And don’t you say a word to anyone until I call you.”

  Jaydee saluted smartly.

  The bell rang out as she entered the dim and much cooler store. Blinking, Vella heard familiar voices. It was Marilee with Belinda over at the soda fountain counter. Marilee, it turned out, was reading a letter from Corrine—six pages front and back.

  “She is quite a writer,” said Marilee proudly, when Vella commented on the length. “And she didn’t come home last weekend. She had to write all about goin’ to a friend’s, who has horses not far out of the city. Corrine’s goin’ to work at a ranch for handicapped children up there…. Here, I’ll start over for you to hear the whole thing. Look, she even drew pictures.”