The Reading Circle

by Ashton Lee

  “Hey, if I don’t try to change things up at New Gallatin Academy, and you don’t hang tough here in Cherico, we might as well revert to cave drawings to communicate!” Jeremy continued, finally coming to a sudden halt and planting his feet firmly in the middle of the room. It was as if he’d found his mark for a scene they were shooting for a movie. Only then did he resume his monologue. “Shouldn’t we have loftier goals than who scores the most touchdowns on Saturdays and Sundays? How low should our common denominator actually be allowed to go?”

  Maura Beth sensed the posturing, the playing to the crowd of one, and remained unmoved. Furthermore, she intended to show him she was no slouch in the speechifying department herself. “Can’t we make room for both? Though I will admit I feel like I have to fight the good fight practically every day of my life. But part of my mission as a librarian is to be inclusive of all ideas and interests in the collection that we make available to the public. We’re not supposed to choose sides, but we’re asked to frequently, believe me. Some people want us to remove any books on witchcraft, while others want to know why we don’t have more information on gay issues. The truth is, we’re the first line of defense against censorship whenever it rears its ugly head. Meanwhile, I just don’t want to be known as the Dictator of The Cherry Cola Book Club.”

  “I have a terrific headache,” Jeremy told her, massaging the tips of his fingers into his forehead. “Do you have something I could take?”

  After Maura Beth had excused herself and retrieved a couple of aspirin and a glass of water for him to wash them down, Jeremy again took a seat on the sofa where he sank back and considered. Then he dropped the bomb. “I don’t want to participate in the Forrest Gump review. I’d probably end up saying things to people that I’d regret, even to my uncle Doug. Not that I have anything against Winston Groom, you understand. More power to any writer who makes a name for himself. It’s just that this last-minute reversal thing is getting to me. I’ll gladly come down for The Robber Bridegroom whenever you schedule it, but not this.”

  Maura Beth resumed her seat beside him, taking his hand and smiling gently. “I’d still like for you to be here, Jeremy. You don’t have to say anything. Just be here for me, and for the good of the club and what it means to the library. We’ve already had a couple of spirited debates—I see nothing wrong with continuing that. You above all should respect the value of the free exchange of ideas.”

  He looked down at his lap where his hands had gone limp and then shook his head. “I just can’t do it, Maura Beth. The way I feel right now, I’m wondering if I even want to return to New Gallatin Academy next year. I think I’m butting my head bloody against the bleachers of the football stadium. Maybe I should have been born in a simpler time.”

  “How far back do you want to go? Before indoor plumbing? You really are in a negative mood, aren’t you?” Maura Beth said. Then it occurred to her that she should be drawing a line in the sand, so she did. “Maybe we shouldn’t see each other until you get things figured out. I don’t particularly like the side of you I’ve seen today, and you seem to think I don’t measure up to your lofty literary standards and that I’m suddenly a huge disappointment to you.”

  There was a long silence filled with tension, and neither of them seemed willing to break through it. Finally, Jeremy rose from the sofa and headed toward the door. “Seems like we’ve both said too much this afternoon. I was going to invite you out to Aunt Connie and Uncle Doug’s for dinner tonight, but I guess maybe that’s not such a good idea now. They’ll be disappointed that you’re not coming, but I’ll make up something to tell them.”

  “We seem to have hit a Gump in the road,” Maura Beth said, trying for levity at the last minute.

  Jeremy produced a weak little smile and gave her a peck on the cheek. “Sorry. It’s been a really bad weekend for me. You’re right. I need to figure things out and get back to you.”

  “I understand all of that, Jeremy, but please, for the sake of our friendship, don’t take too long.”

  She watched him marching to his car with those long, angry strides and wondered if this might be the beginning of the end for a promising relationship that was only a few months old. Over even before it had begun?

  It was the sort of evening given over to romantic walks and whispering sweet nothings in the ear, not to mention a good deal warmer than it should have been for February in the extreme corner of Northeast Mississippi.

  “This is practically that same moon that was shining when we first drove out here to see where our little eatery was going up in the mud,” Harlan Lattimore was saying to his ex-wife after he had cooked and served up their dinner. With the restaurant closed and no one around to disturb them, they were standing on the deck of The Marina Bar and Grill whose pilings jutted out daringly over the slack waters of Lake Cherico. For her part, Periwinkle was having none of his selective remembrances of things past, including his repeated attempts to slip his arm around her waist.

  “That was oh so many moons ago, Harlan John Lattimore. And I no longer have those girlish stars in my eyes.” She moved away from him slightly and then took a swig from her bottle of beer. “Otherwise, not much has changed out here. You can still turn out a mean medium-rare steak and loaded baked potato, which I thank you for. And you still got this same old faded gray deck with the picnic tables for the ones that like the fresh air, and the same old neon jukebox with all the country line dancing tunes indoors by the bar. Even though line dancing is so over, it’s not even funny. And I imagine that back room I unwittingly decorated for your extracurricular activities is still up and running.”

  He seemed to take her sarcasm in stride and even cracked a smile. “Now, you’d be wrong about that, Peri. I got rid of it and expanded the pantry over two years ago. If you’d like the grand tour, I’d be happy to oblige. But it’s just a collection of canned goods and spices with a few cardboard boxes thrown in for good measure. I gave the bed and the mattress the old heave-ho and drove ’em on down to the Cherico Salvation Army.”

  “And they took something that worn-out?”

  “You can make jokes all you want, but I really am a changed man,” he insisted. “I wanted to tell you that tonight here under the moonlight. Ordered it up special just for you.”

  Periwinkle looked him over with a skeptical expression. He hadn’t changed much since their divorce, at least not physically. He still sported a lean and tall physique with rugged features accentuated by a neatly trimmed mustache, a full head of curly hair with a few grays here and there, and he had yet to give up on his blue jeans and cowboy shirt costumes. Somewhere along the way, he had died and gone to Line Dancing Heaven. But she had her doubts as to whether he had truly renounced his philandering ways, back room or no back room. No matter what, she was not about to be sweet-talked into anything she felt was not in her best interests. She was forty now, over two decades removed from the guileless country teenager who had once fallen for his macho Marlboro Man charms.

  “So what’s caused this so-called change in you?”

  “I was hoping you’d ask,” he said, giving her a roguish wink. “The old me wouldn’t even admit to what I’m gonna tell you, but here goes nothing. A few years back this sweet young thing in a skirt leaving nothing to the imagination wiggles her way across the floor and takes a bar stool right smack dab in front of me. I could tell she was definitely gonna make a move and—”

  “Seems to have happened to you all the time, as I found out in no uncertain terms,” she interrupted.

  He briefly closed his eyes and shook his head. “Okay, okay. But this little item was different. ‘What’s your name?’ I asked her. And she said it was Tammie, spelled with an I-E—”

  “I’m sure that set her apart from the others.”

  “Please stop interrupting me, Peri. You may not believe it, but I have a real good point to make here.” He waited a few seconds to see if she was going to comply, continuing only after she shrugged her shoulders and nodded with
a look of resignation. “Anyhow, she happened to stroll in on my birthday, and a couple of the regulars mentioned that fact while we were all talking our typical bar talk. So Tammie says, ‘Hey, how old are you anyway, barkeep?’ And I like a fool tell her the truth. ‘Forty-nine,’ I say. And that’s when I get the surprise of my life. Tammie looks me straight in the eye and says I need to go see the doctor right away. Of course, I have no idea what she’s talking about, so I ask her to explain. And she goes, ‘Anyone that old is bound to have something wrong with ’em.’ ”

  Periwinkle started up with her heartiest laugh and took her time letting it die off. “Man, did you get your comeuppance!”

  “I guess I did. And you know what? I really did go to the doctor for that checkup I hadn’t had in a long time. After all the blood work and the X-rays came back, I was thankful there was nothing wrong with me. But it did start me thinking about the future. I mean, how long was I really gonna settle for these one-night stands? This generation gap that was all lipstick and legs right in front of me was only gonna get wider as time went on.” He frowned for a moment at what he’d just said. “Wait . . . that didn’t come out right.”

  “It’s nothing I haven’t heard before. I’m a big girl.”

  He moved in, bringing the smell of beer on his warm breath and the English Leather he had dabbed on his neck closer to her. “Fact is, I was crazy to fool around on you, Peri. I didn’t know how good I had it. Look at you, just as slim and beautiful as you were when we first started dating. I even like your new blond hair.”

  She was still in no mood for such tactics, however, and again backed away from him ever so slightly. “Yeah, well, it’s getting time for another one of my root jobs over at Cherico Tresses. But that’s neither here nor there. Harlan, what on earth do you really want? Can’t you come clean?”

  “Of course I can. I really want to be with you again,” he answered, lifting his right eyebrow seductively. “I thought I made that clear.”

  “And you expect me to believe that?”

  He took his time, taking a swallow of beer first. “Well, I can see why you would have your doubts. But I noticed you haven’t found anyone, either—at least not that I know of. You’re not hiding a boyfriend in your attic, are you?”

  “No, besides, I’d have him chained in the basement so he couldn’t play around on me like you did.”

  They both laughed; then he said, “I had that coming, I guess. But I was thinking maybe we could try again. What’s the harm in that?”

  She put her beer down on the deck railing and it nearly fell off as it made contact with a protruding rusty nail head. Then she gave him an intense stare after rescuing the bottle quickly with an impressive acrobatic move. “Break my heart once, shame on you. Break it twice, shame on me.” She turned toward the lake and marveled at the way the dark water had dissolved the moon into thin, uneven shards of light dancing on the surface. “I let that pretty sight out there lead me out to sea once before,” she continued, pointing to the horizon. “I’m not about to up and do it again.”

  Surprisingly, he appeared amused at her remarks. “I see I have my work cut out for me. But that’s okay. You won’t mind being courted again, will you?”

  She returned his laughter, only louder. “No, not as long as you don’t mind being rejected.”

  “We’ll see about that, Peri,” he told her, finishing off his beer in one great chug and rather unromantically stifling a belch. “We’ll just see.”

  For Maura Beth, Monday morning was not a day to rejoice. Unlike some people with a predictable work routine, she had never had any trouble getting her week started in her cramped little library office. She considered herself nothing if not a woman on a mission. But this Monday was different, and it showed on her face and even in the way she was moving about in a kind of slow motion. She just couldn’t get it out of her head that Jeremy had exploded yesterday over something as relatively inconsequential as a book club read. That was nothing in the larger scheme of things. What kind of relationship could she expect with him over the long haul when things really got tough? The incident did not inspire confidence that he might actually be the man she had ordered up on page 25 of her LSU journal almost a decade ago. At the moment he did not resemble marriage material.

  A few seconds later, Renette Posey popped her head in. “Nothing much going on out there at the circulation desk, so I thought I’d catch up with you a bit.”

  Maura Beth managed a smile, but it faded quickly. “Nothing much going on in here, either, I’m afraid.”

  Renette took a seat across from her superior, smiling genuinely. “Miz Mayhew, I’ve worked for you long enough now to know when something’s wrong. You dragged yourself in here this morning, and I was wondering if I might help somehow. You know I’ll keep anything you tell me in strictest confidence.”

  Maura Beth made another weak attempt at holding up the corners of her mouth but couldn’t stop her lips from trembling. “That’s sweet of you, Renette.”

  “Weren’t you and Mr. McShay supposed to get together over the weekend? Did he not show up or something? Being stood up is the worst.”

  Maura Beth decided she needed to confide in someone, since she hadn’t had the chance to run anything past Periwinkle yet; and even though Renette was ten years younger and just out of high school, she knew she could trust her Monday, Wednesday, and Friday front desk clerk with the slightly edited details of her private life. “Oh, Jeremy showed up, all right,” she began. “It would have been better if he hadn’t, though.” Then she recounted their surprisingly antagonistic exchange, complete with her own exaggerated hand gestures—right, left, up, and down—and finished with a long, calming intake and release of air.

  “I wouldn’t have seen that coming,” Renette said, her pretty young face creased with frown lines. “Mr. McShay was so professional when he brought down those three students from Nashville for the To Kill a Mockingbird review. He was so composed and made such intelligent comments. I wish I’d had a teacher like him ’cause I know I would’ve gotten better grades. Anyway, I was gonna tell you that my girlfriends and I have started reading Forrest Gump for the March meeting. We compare notes over the phone as we go along. We all like Forrest a lot as far as we’ve gotten, even though he doesn’t speak good English and some of the things he says are downright hilarious. But I can think of a few boys I went to high school with who didn’t sound too much better, and they weren’t nearly as funny. That Mr. Groom sure has captured the South so far, and that little first-grade romance with Jenny is just as cute as it can be. I had my first crush at the age, too, and I’ve never forgotten it.”

  Maura Beth held out both hands, palms up for emphasis. “Thank you! Those are the sort of comments I would have expected from Jeremy to get a review off to a good start. Instead, he just got completely bent out of shape about how football was stealing all his thunder, and I can’t believe he said he wouldn’t even come down. Really, now, how mature is that? I think I can remember fusses I had in junior high that were more reasonable than that.”

  “No wonder you’re so upset.”

  They sat with everything for a while; then Maura Beth put the tips of her fingers together thoughtfully. “Well, he has to make the next move. I as much as told him so. I’m not saying he owes me an actual apology, but the Jeremy who showed up yesterday afternoon can take that show on the road.”

  Renette grinned and leaned in with a wink. “That’s the best thing about working for you, Miz Mayhew. You’ve got loaded book carts of spunk, and I keep telling myself that when I grow up, I wanna be just like you.”

  5

  “Duck and Cover”

  Miss Voncille had come to the conclusion that more drastic measures were in order. Locke’s favorite dinner of pork tenderloin with mushrooms, sweet potato hash, and homemade biscuits, which she lovingly prepared for him whenever they spent the night at her Painter Street cottage, wasn’t getting the job done by a long shot. So when they had finished off th
eir dessert of bread pudding and coffee, she hauled her grade-school scrapbook out of the bedroom closet, rummaged through it extensively, and found just the image to move the object of her affection off dead center. Or at least she hoped it would. Merely reading Forrest Gump together for the upcoming March meeting of The Cherry Cola Book Club wasn’t getting her where she wanted to be, either.

  “Remember this foolishness?” she said to him, pointing to a faded black-and-white snapshot of what looked like a deserted elementary classroom. It was surrounded by other old photos of children on the seesaw, playing dodge ball and climbing on the jungle gym, many staring at the camera with their tongues sticking out for no other reason than they were seven, eight, or nine years old. It came with the territory.

  “A bunch of children playing. So what?”

  Her impatience was quite evident in her tone. “No, not those. Just the one I’m pointing to.”

  They were seated on her long green living room sofa, flanked by a couple of her many potted palms, and still he could only manage a frown. “There’s nobody in that picture.”

  She briefly shifted the scrapbook, bringing it up closer to his face as if she expected him to inhale the enticing aroma of some delicious entrée. “You aren’t looking close enough.”

  He was squinting hard now, but to no avail. “It’s just a bunch of desks somewhere, Voncille. I have no idea what it is you expect me to see.”

  She produced an exasperated sigh. “When was the last time you had your eyes checked? I’m thinking it’s been too long, because you should be able to do better than that.” She placed the tip of her index finger beneath one of the desks in the foreground and moved it quickly from side to side as if trying to rub out a stain. “Zero in on this, if you please.”