The Wedding Machine

by Beth Webb Hart

  Hilda grew up vacationing at the house two doors down from the Montgomerys’. The yellow one right in front of the washout where the beach curves toward the bay and the ocean peters out and becomes the sound. Her older brother, Davy, used to shoot off Roman candles at the end of the boardwalk, and her mama would smile her hundred-watt smile and wave to them from the screened porch. Her mama always wore a wide straw hat at the beach and white rimmed sunglasses with black lenses, and she didn’t think Hilda could see her sleeping or weeping behind them.

  When her daddy came home, Hilda’s mama took to the bed, where she watched Ed Sullivan and smoked NOW cigarettes with an empty conch shell for an ashtray on her lap.

  “What are you thinking about, Hilda?” Sis says. They are sitting on the freshly painted white wicker furniture at the end of Ray’s porch sipping a strong pink drink that Vangie Dreggs whipped up in a blender.

  “What are we drinking?” Hilda says, ignoring Sis. Maybe if she downs a couple of cocktails she can excuse herself to her room for the night.

  Ray leans in to say “Cos-mo-pol-i-tan,” as Vangie bends Kitty B.’s ear about the properties she’s considering for her second home.

  “Tell me that’s not the most ironic thing in the world,” Ray adds, shaking her head. The swelling has gone down around her eye and her stitches have dissolved, but Hilda can’t help but cringe at the fresh red scar above her friend’s right cheekbone.

  “Ray,” Sis says in a hushed tone.

  Ray lifts her eyebrows. Hilda takes another sip in hopes that the icy drink will calm her nerves. She’s just not used to being out like this, though she has to admit the sea air smells awfully good.

  “I’m not over it,” Ray says as she leans in toward the wicker coffee table to pick up the bowl of stone crab claws to pass around.

  Hilda rolls her eyes. Now who is Ray talking to? She isn’t exactly sure what transpired, but somehow Vangie Dreggs invited herself to the weekend, and Ray had no way of telling her no. Frankly, Hilda is thankful. It gets everyone’s focus off her.

  “Why, thank you, Ray,” Vangie says, dunking her claw into the creamy curry dip. “I think South Carolinians are simply the most hospitable in all the country.”

  Kitty B. says, “Well, that’s nice of you to say.” She sees no rattle on Vangie’s tail.

  Ray bites the inside of her cheek and hands out her new square linen napkins. They have a pinkish-orange crab embroidered on them, and they match the white and salmon-colored striped cushions on the wicker furniture. Ray is one of those people who likes for everything to match in a cutesy kind of way at her beach house, and for some reason this annoys Hilda. The beach is one of the few places that can and should be rustic and random with a hodgepodge of furniture and decor.

  “I just read the other day that Charleston was voted the friendliest city in this big national survey,” Sis adds.

  “Maybe that’s why the Yankees are flocking down here like there’s no tomorrow,” Ray says.

  “Mmm. Mmm,” Vangie says as she slurps her drink. “That’s true, but I’ll tell you those Yankees are going to bring a lot of money into this area, and we’ll all be better for it.”

  Ray clears her throat and shakes her head.

  “You’re from Charleston, aren’t you, Ray?” Vangie asks. “Tell me who your family is there.”

  Ray sits up on the edge of the rocking chair, pushes back her shoulders, focuses on a patch in the screen just beyond Vangie, and says, “The Pringles.”

  “Oh my, the Pringles,” Vangie says. “You know my sister says they are one of the oldest families in the city. In fact she pointed out one of their old houses to me—the pale yellow one on the high battery with the triple-story piazzas. My word, those ceilings must be fourteen feet tall!”

  “Yes,” Ray says. “I spent a lot of time there.”

  Sis lets out a nervous giggle, and Hilda feels like causing some trouble.

  “Ray grew up in that yellow house,” Hilda says. “At least that’s what we’ve come to assume. I don’t know why she’s so guarded about the whole thing.”

  Ray shoots a look in Hilda’s direction. “I’m not guarded.”

  “Sure you are.” Hilda rubs the knobby outline of the pink crab on the linen napkin she’s draped across her knee. “In all the years we’ve known you, you’ve never once told us a story about your childhood.” “Oh, tell me a story!” Vangie says. She puts her cocktail down and spreads out her fingers like she’s in a jazz dance number. “You know I’m writing a book! About Texas and the healing ministry and my small group and South Carolina and real estate and all of the amazing things that have happened to me since I came to the Lord, and I want to include all of you in it!”

  Ray shoots Hilda a look, then says to Sis, “Can you go stir the Creole for me?”

  “Okay,” Sis says, “but don’t start the story without me.”

  Kitty B. grabs the acrylic pitcher of cosmopolitans to refill the glasses, and all eyes are on Ray when she sits down in her large wicker rocking chair. The rocker’s back is tall and round and it fans out around her like a throne, and Hilda has to admit, she’s enjoying this. Ray, with her clandestine past and her whole life so maddeningly together. She’s bugged Hilda ever since the night she won the watermelon-stealing contest back in high school, all dressed up in her linen pedal pushers and her white eyelet shirt.

  Instead of sitting back and rocking, Ray moves to the edge of her pink and white striped cushion and begins. “We lived with my great-aunt, Lindy Pringle. It was my sister and Mama and me. My father died in the war.”

  As Ray’s face reddens, she pats it with her napkin and continues. “Anyhow, I remember when we bought our first television. It was the day before Queen Elizabeth’s coronation, and Mama had sewn Laura and me matching dresses to wear because Great-Aunt Lindy had invited all of her friends over to see the ceremony on the new television. It was a lovely affair—very formal and very Charleston with ‘Oh Be Joyful’ punch and cheese biscuits and cucumber sandwiches and candied pecans. Most everyone in Charleston is an Anglophile, you know?”

  Ray looks down and brushes some sand off the side of her leg. Then she rubs her fingers back and forth across the woven arms of the wicker chair at least four times before they realize that this is the end of the story.

  “Ah, well, that’s nice, Ray,” Vangie says. “I can picture it! Do you have any photos?”

  “Well, not here.” Ray scratches around her fresh scar. “I’ve got some at home. How did that Creole look, Sis? Think we’re about ready to drop the shrimp in?”

  “Yeah,” Sis says, sipping her drink.

  “Say, Ray,” Hilda adds, “that’s not much of a story.”

  Ray’s back bristles, and Hilda can’t imagine why she’s enjoying herself so much.

  “You know, I have to agree,” Kitty B. giggles. “I’ve got a much better story about that coronation.”

  “Let’s hear it!” Vangie says, her emerald eyes glistening in the porch light. “I’m all ears.”

  Then Kitty B. tells a story about how her daddy, Mayor Hathaway, invited the whole community of Jasper to the Town Hall to watch the coronation on their new television. Shortly after a large group gathered, her brother Jackson tripped over the cord when her other brother, Buzz, was chasing him, and the television fell over and crashed. Then the whole town raced out of the building because kooky old Mr. Sandeman shouted, “There are fumes from inside that machine that can poison you!”

  The gals all hoot and holler and laugh about how Kitty B.’s daddy and Old Stained Glass and the town doctor before Angus, Virgil McDougal, went ever so cautiously back into Town Hall wearing operating masks to survey the damage.

  After they catch their breath, Sis says, “Look at that sunset,” and they turn to watch the fiery orange ball make its way behind the Pines of Otter Island in just a few short minutes.

  When they sit down to dinner, Vangie Dreggs tells some crazy stories about her childhood on a cattle ranch in Grand S
aline, Texas, that involved her spirited grandmother and a pack of angry dwarf goats.

  “Now that’s a story!” Sis laughs as she passes the biscuits a second time.

  Kitty B. takes two. “I’ll say.”

  Hilda looks at Ray. “You could take a lesson in storytelling from Vangie Dreggs, Ray.”

  Ray’s face reddens, and she stands up and picks up her plate and Sis’s.

  “Hilda, I wouldn’t have invited you to come along if I thought you were going to be critiquing me every second.”

  The table gets quiet as Ray takes the plates over to the sink and comes back for more. “There’s key lime pie on the counter for dessert,” she says, “and decaf brewing in the pot. I think I’m going to turn in for the night.” She picks up Hilda’s plate.

  “Oh, Ray, c’mon,” Hilda says, lighting a cigarette. “We were just pulling your leg a little. I mean, you’re so durn tight-lipped about your childhood and all.”

  “Forget about that,” Kitty B. says, clapping her hands and reaching for a deck of cards on the table. “We’re just getting started having some fun, y’all. I was hoping we could play a game of hearts or ‘oh hell’ after this! Like we always do, Ray. And then we can start scheming again about how to get Sis and Capers Campbell together.”

  “Oh, my.” Vangie blushes and chuckles nervously as Little Bit scampers over and hops onto her lap. “They would make a nice pair.”

  “No thanks,” Ray says, staring Hilda down. “That accident’s catching up with me, and I’m plumb worn out from the wedding. It’s no wonder is it, Hilda?”

  Hilda sees where this is going, and she narrows her eyes, “Ray . . .”

  “Don’t ‘Ray’ me. Your friends here spent a whole lot of time, energy, and money getting your daughter married while you, Miss Princess of Jasper, stayed holed up in your home like a hermit crab and graced us with your presence for a few moments during the weekend.”

  Hilda puts out her half-smoked cigarette, stands up, and stares Ray down. “That’s enough, Ray. After all I’ve been through . . .”

  “After all you’ve been through? As if you didn’t bring it on yourself,” Ray says. “It’s no wonder Angus threw up his hands. He’s only human, you know?”

  Vangie Dreggs is speechless. She bites her lip and looks down at the remnants of a half-eaten biscuit as Sis and Kitty B. turn to comfort Hilda, but it is too late.

  Hilda storms out the porch door, running down the boardwalk and into the balmy night, the salt air lifting her hair and separating it into stringy strands. She is barefoot and she doesn’t care how hard the shells feel beneath her heels as she hits the beach. She runs toward the surf, crying and hoping to God she doesn’t see anyone she knows out here. When she gets to the water, she half thinks she’s going to jump in and swim out into the warm, dark depths until she can’t take another stroke. But she doesn’t.

  Instead, she turns and heads toward the pier, letting the saltwater lick her knees. She walks for more than an hour along the beach with the water up to her thighs, wetting her khaki Bermuda shorts as the wind carries her tears toward her hairline, leaving thin sandy streaks across her cheeks.

  “To hell with you, Ray Montgomery,” she says. “You think you know how it is, but you don’t. You have no clue, you finicky Charleston witch. It was you who tried to edge your way into the Jasper pack just like Vangie is doing now. You have no idea what my life has been like. Not the beginning of a clue.”

  After Hilda passes the pier and the Edisto Motel, she realizes she can’t just walk to Jasper in this blackness, so slowly she makes her way back to Ray’s house. She tiptoes up the stairs and takes a seat on the little deck at the end of the boardwalk, where she lights a cigarette and hopes none of them will notice she’s returned. The lights are on in the upstairs bedrooms, and she supposes that everyone has retired to their own space to read their beach book instead of cackling on the screened porch in a game of hearts. She wishes she could just get in her car and leave, but of course, Sis gave her a ride and she’s stuck here in the first lady of Jasper’s made-over house with salmon and aqua-colored nautical knickknacks every which way you turn.

  As she hugs her knobby knees to her chest, she watches two children come out of the yellow house where her family used to stay. They are carrying buckets, and the father jogs closely behind them with a flashlight.

  “Slow down,” he calls. “Wait for me.”

  ~ JULY 19, 1956 ~

  “Where the heck have you two been?” Hilda could hear her father calling to her and her brother, Davy, when they were hunting for ghost crabs one summer night.

  Davy was twelve and Hilda was nine, and they had met up with a girl from Davy’s class named Marcia Tarleton who Hilda could tell had an awful crush on Davy. Marcia’s little sister, Bonnie, was a year younger than Hilda, and the four of them had so much fun chasing the crabs out to the surf that Davy asked the girls if they’d meet them back in a few minutes after they went up and checked on their mama, who fell asleep every now and then with a lit cigarette in her lap.

  “Your mother has nearly worried herself to death,” her daddy hollered from the doorway of the screened porch, his hands on his hips and his lips pursed. The bright storm light at the top of the stairs illuminated his gray suit and the dark tie he had loosened at the neck.

  Mama? Hilda thought. She had been snoozing in front of the television in her bedroom with an empty gin and tonic in a bright plastic cup, and Daddy hadn’t come home yet from one of his business dinners with the mill executives who flew in from New York from time to time to brief him about the union’s plans to infiltrate the company. The executives told him about Norma Jean, who had stood on her loom at the textile mill in North Carolina, and that he’d have to be prepared to pull folks down from the pulp machines if they pulled a stunt like that around here. Hilda’s daddy usually stayed in town when he had one of those meetings, and they weren’t expecting him to come out to Edisto that night.

  “We were just on the beach hunting crabs,” Davy said, sprinting up the stairs to the porch doorway. When he met their daddy, he placed the bucket on the rail and spread his palms out wide to show they had nothing to hide.

  “Well, I hope you had one rip-roaring good time, Son, because neither of you are going out of this house at night for the rest of the week.”

  “Dad, c’mon,” Davy said. “This is our vacation. We aren’t doing anything wrong.”

  Their daddy stuck out two fingers as if to make the peace sign and poked Davy right in the collarbone, where he lost his footing and scuffled down two steps.

  Then Davy’s outstretched hands turned into fists, and he grabbed the bucket on the rail and threw it down at his father’s wingtip shoes, where two ghost crabs and a heap of wet sand spilled out across the wooden planks.

  Her daddy grabbed Davy by the collar and shoved him down what was at least ten stairs, where he landed at Hilda’s feet with a thud.

  “I hate you,” Davy said under his breath as he picked himself up and reached out for Hilda’s hand.

  Before he could stand back up, their father was down the stairs, grabbing him by the collar and taking him out on the end of the boardwalk, where he pulled down Davy’s pants, grabbed a cast net by the fishing rods and swatted Davy over and over on his hips and backside, the little metal weights at the end of the net making welts on his bare skin.

  Hilda stood stone still, watching her brother yelp and shout for mercy as Marcia and Bonnie’s flashlight made its way up the beach to meet them. When their beam shone on Davy’s welts and his daddy’s arm coming down with the blows of the swinging cast net, Marcia shrieked and dropped her glowing light, and Hilda tried to make out their shadowy outlines as they ran back down the beach toward their home on the other side of the pier.

  Through the bedroom window that opened onto the screened porch, Hilda heard her mama stirring in the bed, but she never emerged from her room, and Hilda was the one who brought an ice pack to her brother as he lay belly down
on the hammock beneath the house, vowing to run away as soon as he had the money.

  The Princess of Jasper. Hilda shakes her head as she watches through the sea oats while the children’s flashlights scan the beach for ghost crabs. Maybe I did think of myself that way when I was young.

  Hilda’s father, David Savage, opened the Jasper Paper Mill that resuscitated the dwindling businesses in town in the 1950s. Over three hundred people came to Jasper to work at the mill, and the Savage family lived on boss man’s row in an antebellum house at the edge of the mill village drive. The village was made up of shotgun houses on cinderblocks with no running water and big, brown barrels for bathing, but Hilda’s house was grand with its tall white columns, and her family had a cook and a housekeeper and running water and a television set, and as a child she really did think they were like royalty in a crude little kingdom where trucks carrying limbless pine trunks barreled by their home each evening.

  When her mama would give her a dime and send her down to Condon’s department store to buy a new pair of shoes or a milkshake at the lunch counter, the black men in Jasper as well as the poor men would literally move off the sidewalk to let her pass.

  “Morning, Miss Hilda,” the men would say, tipping their hats or nodding their heads before stepping off the curb.

  Maybe Ray is right. I assumed I ruled the town—back then, anyway. Her mama didn’t help matters much. When she was coherent, she would sit at Hilda’s vanity and brush her hair for a half hour at a time, lifting it up to the morning sunlight pouring through her bedroom window. Her mama drove to Charleston and bought fine fabrics for the local seamstress, Mrs. Chalmers, to make smocked dresses and slips and pantaloons for Hilda with little lace borders and thin satin ribbons. She would send Hilda down the mill village row with the fabrics and over to a little apartment above the sweet-shop on Main Street, where Hilda would sit for hours and watch Mrs. Chalmers cut the fabric according to the patterns and sew her exquisite wardrobe together. One day when Mrs. Chalmers’s arthritis was acting up, she called Hilda over to her sewing table and said, “Why don’t you help me with this, child.”