Hilda’s mama never cared when she and Davy went down to the beach at night. She would put on her lipstick and a long bed gown and sit on the sofa doing the crossword puzzle before pouring herself a second cocktail.
Looking back on it, Hilda figures that her mama was just miserably homesick and depressed with her small-town life. She was from Richmond, Virginia, and claimed to have bluer blood than anyone from South Carolina. David Savage had met her at a Virginia Military Institute game where her father served as the president of the college.
Hilda’s parents had two versions of the “how we met” story. Her daddy’s was that at the end of the game when the cadets threw up their hats in a victory gesture, Hilda’s mama ran across the stands, knocking over drinks and tripping over legs, to catch his hat, and she carried it over to him and said, “Hi, I’m Martha Louise Staunton.”
Her mama’s version was practically the opposite. That she was sitting there, cheering on the team for the final touchdown when her daddy took off his hat and threw it like a Frisbee into her lap.
At any rate, her parents met at the game. David was from a poor tobacco farming town on the Tennessee border, but he was handsome and driven, and Martha Louise fell for him and followed him up and down the East Coast as he made his way up in the paper mill industry. Hilda was seven when they landed in Jasper, and her mama took one look at their beautiful new home and said, “This is it. We’re not moving again.” Her mama liked being in the Lowcountry at first, but the heat and the bugs and the reptiles weren’t nearly as romantic as she’d imagined, and she didn’t have a friend in the world except for her afternoon toddy.
Hilda’s daddy was almost always mad and ranting. He was trying to keep the unions out. He was fighting off the employees’ demands. And he was fending off the KKK, who put a burning cross in their yard after her daddy promoted a black man to manage the pulp production.
Hilda’s brother did try to protect her from her daddy’s wrath. Once when their father was shouting in a harsh tone for Hilda to get in the house and look after her mama, Davy tackled her and hid her beneath the camellia bushes, her smocked dress picking up the leaves and dirt and the stains from the dark pink petals.
“He’s in a rage,” he whispered. “If you go in now, you’ll get it good.” “But I can’t stay out here all night,” she mouthed, picking the petals from her dress.
“He’ll storm out when he sees how bad off Mama is tonight,” Davy whispered. “When he gets in his car to drive around, you can sneak in and go straight to bed.”
Hilda nodded and Davy walked toward the porch to tell Daddy that she must be out with her friends.
~ SEPTEMBER 18, 1962 ~
Shortly after her fourteenth birthday Hilda woke up in the middle of the night with her daddy in bed next to her.
It had been six months since Davy ran away. He hopped on a train headed west with some money his grandparents had sent him for his sixteenth birthday, and they had not heard a word from him.
Hilda was not entirely surprised to feel her father’s touch beneath the covers. Old Stained Glass had preached the Sunday before that depravity knows no class boundaries, and she knew David Savage was an angry, desperate man.
For the first several times, she pretended like she was asleep, but as the months went by and she entered high school, she would turn over to him, her body drawn to the warmth of his groping hands in her half-sleep haze. It was strange and awful and sad.
Of course she knew she couldn’t fight her daddy off, but the worst part was that her body responded to the power of his touch. She will never discard the shame of this, nor will she forgive the body she inhabits or the God who created it to respond to such a thing.
Angus never knew. No one knew, except for her daddy, what went on those two years. And once just after her sweet sixteen, her mama called to her daddy from one of her rare, lucid moments in the night.
“David?” she said from their room shortly after he had slipped under Hilda’s covers. He stood up, wiped his brow, and went back to the bed he and his wife shared, and he never came back after that.
Now as Hilda watches the father chasing ghost crabs with his two children up and down the beach, she listens intently to their laughter. One of them is shouting, “Daddy, over here! Look at this one!” The other is shrieking with both fear and delight, “Get him! Get him!”
Before long, the mother comes down with a baby on her hips, and she watches her children and her husband chase the translucent little crustaceans that dart in and out of the holes along the surf. When they call, “Did you see that, Mama?” she hollers “Yes!” with wonder and encouragement.
“Hey, gal,” Sis and Kitty B. call as Hilda looks up to find them shuffling down the boardwalk toward her with an extra cosmopolitan in their hands and a bowl of boiled peanuts.
“You okay?” Kitty B. says as she and Sis sit down on either side of Hilda and pat her bony shoulders.
“Yeah,” Hilda takes a gulp of the fruity drink before reaching for a peanut.
“Here you go.” Sis lifts the bowl. “A little Carolina caviar for you, Your Highness.”
They laugh a deep laugh as Hilda splits the seam of the shell with her thumbnail and nibbles on the soft, salty meat cradled inside.
“You know Ray didn’t mean it.” Kitty B. pulls Hilda close.
“She did so,” Hilda says as the salt air blows their hair in all directions. “But you know, she’s right. It’s no wonder he left.”
“Hilda.” Sis squeezes her bony shoulder. “Don’t say that.”
Hilda throws the damp shell into the dunes. “I was a terrible companion.”
Kitty B. and Sis look to each other like they want to say something to make her feel better. Hilda senses neither one of them can find the words.
“And now I might just spend the rest of my life alone.” Hilda rubs her hands together. “I might die alone. Do y’all realize that?” Sis bites her lip, and Kitty B. pokes at the boiled peanuts with the tip of her index finger.
“I was a horrible companion, but I never dreamed Angus would leave.”
“We know,” Kitty B. says as she puts the bowl of peanuts down and wipes her finger on her Bermuda shorts.
“Sometimes I imagine he’ll come back,” Hilda says. “Come right through the door with that old leather suitcase he bought when we were in Greece on our honeymoon. Do you think it’s crazy for me to think that way?”
Just then Ray hollers from the screened porch, “Kitty B.! Katie Rae is on the phone, and she says it’s an emergency!”
LeMar, they are all thinking, and they run toward the porch door, where Ray hands Kitty B. the cordless as they stand like a wall around her. Hilda too.
“What?” Kitty B. shouts in disbelief. “You’ve only known him for six weeks, darlin’!”
“Heavens to Betsy! Do you think Katie Rae’s engaged?” Ray murmurs as Vangie and Little Bit step out onto the porch to see what’s going on.
“She can’t be,” Sis says as Kitty B. listens and says, “Mmm. Hmm. My, that sounds nice,” into the receiver.
“Do you think she swallowed a watermelon seed?” Sis whispers nervously.
“I bet she did,” Hilda says almost before she can stop herself.
“A watermelon seed?” Vangie asks as Little Bit yips around their legs until he pushes through their wall of bare legs and reaches up for Kitty B., who has already shown him some attention.
“Sounds like Katie Rae is engaged,” Sis whispers. “And since she’s only known the boy for a short while, we wonder if she’s expecting.”
“Well, that would explain it,” Ray says to Hilda. There is a softness in her eyes, and Hilda knows that what transpired between them earlier is over and Ray is sorry.
“No, I can’t!” Kitty B. continues, “Why in the world do you want to get married so soon? Have you talked to your daddy?”
When she hangs up, the gals lead her over to the couch and bring her a thick slice of key lime pie.
S
he takes a big bite, sits back, and says, “Well, y’all, Katie Rae’s engaged to that religious reptile man, and she wants to be married by Christmas.”
“Do you think she’s swallowed a watermelon seed?” Vangie asks. Hilda swallows a secret grin—Vangie is clueless. This is not something you just come right out and ask the mother of the bride.
Four distinct worry lines form across Kitty B.’s forehead. “Maybe,” she says. “She’s only known this boy since June.”
“She met him on the computer,” Ray informs Vangie.
“Oh, yes, my cousin met a man that way,” Vangie says, scratching Little Bit beneath the chin. “And I might do the same if I can’t win the affection of a local.”
Kitty B. shakes her head in disbelief. “Of course I have no idea how LeMar will react, and goodness knows we have no money to put on a wedding. He’s been out of work for years now, and y’all know we’ve about run through my inheritance.”
“Don’t you worry about that,” Vangie says. “We’ll all pull together in this, won’t we, ladies?”
Ray rolls her eyes at Vangie. “Of course we will. We have for decades and decades, haven’t we, gals?”
Sis and Hilda nod, and Kitty B. gets a faraway look in her eye and then smiles. “Well, I have to say, as crazy as it sounds, I’m kind of happy for her. I never thought she’d find anyone, and she sounds more excited than I can ever remember.”
Ray pats Kitty B.’s knee. “Good.”
“Tell us more,” Sis says. “How did he propose?”
“On a picnic at the Columbia Zoo,” Kitty B. says. “Right in front of the orangutan exhibit—Katie Rae’s favorite.”
“Aww.” Sis cocks her head to the side.
“Odd, but sweet,” Hilda adds.
“They’re both animal lovers,” Kitty B. says. “He has more pets at his house than she does, and she says he’s always rescuing some dog or cat from the shelter. Of course he runs that reptile place over on the ACE.”
“Sounds like they’ll have one lively home life,” Sis adds as Ray pulls out a pad and a pen, turns on the porch light and says, “Let’s start brainstorming.”
Vangie claps her hands in glee, and Little Bit jumps off the salmon-colored couch and barks around her ankles.
“I’ve already got some ideas.” Ray clicks the top of her pen and starts writing.
Hilda fights back a yawn. “Let’s hear them.”
“Yes!” Kitty B. shouts as she sits up and pats her brow with a linen napkin. “I can’t wait to hear them all!”
ELEVEN
Kitty B.
“What in the world?” LeMar says from his rocking chair the next afternoon as Katie Rae and her fiancé stand on the front porch of the Cottage Hill house and show him the solitaire on her left hand. Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette plays in the background. Kitty B. went to see the opera with LeMar a few months ago at the Spoleto Festival. It was set in a contemporary New Jersey community where the Capulet family ran a funeral home. LeMar listens to Act Five, in which the lovers die praying for divine forgiveness, at least once a week. He’s so melodramatic, Kitty B. thinks.
“You two hardly know each other, Katie Rae,” he says, a knowing look in his eye.
Then he turns to Dr. Marshall Bennington. “Son, when you came to ask for her hand last week, I thought I made it clear that this needs to happen at least six months down the road.”
Marshall clears his throat over the tragic music. He pulls at his starched oxford collar before smoothing out the pleats in his khaki shorts. “Sir, I’m thirty-five years old. I’ve been asking God for a wife for nine years now, and I know that Katie Rae is the answer to that prayer.”
An out-and-out smile, teeth and all, spreads across Katie Rae’s face. She looks frumpy compared to Marshall in her untucked T-shirt and cutoff jeans, but at least she bothered to put on some small silver hoop earrings and a little lipstick too.
“Might be,” LeMar says as he pinches his nostrils. “But I don’t think you’ve been with her long enough to know.”
“Marshall’s a good man, Daddy,” Katie Rae says, furrowing her wide brow. Her chubby cheeks begin to flush as she adds, “A better man than I ever dreamed of meeting.”
“You’re only twenty-two, child.” LeMar tries to meet her eyes. “You haven’t finished college and you’ve never held down a legitimate job or a long-term relationship, and you think you can make a decision like this after knowing someone for two months?”
Katie Rae’s cheeks fill with air and her eyes narrow. She grabs her head with both hands, and her solitaire catches the crisp light of the September afternoon. Then she dashes out toward the dock with Marshall fast on her heels. The dogs think this is a game of chase, and they follow raucously behind, nipping and barking at Marshall’s ankles.
LeMar holds the palm of his hand up to Kitty B. as Romeo drinks a vial of poison in the Capulet crypt before seeing Juliet rouse.
“Don’t utter a word, Kitty B.,” he says. “I know what’s going on.”
“Oh, you do?” She grinds her teeth. “Please tell me what you know, LeMar. Tell me why you’ve gone and mortally insulted our daughter in front of what might be the only man that is ever going to love her.”
LeMar shakes his head back and forth, then he grabs at the back of his neck.
“Y’all are speeding this up on account of my headaches,” he says, sitting down in the rocking chair. “You want me to be there before whatever shows up on that MRI eats me up. You’ve all but bought my headstone, haven’t you?”
He bites his lip and conducts the orchestra for a moment with his thick hands. His fingers remind Kitty B. of the link sausages she buys at Marvin’s Meats.
Of course. She gets it now. Somehow this has got to be about you and your make-believe illness!
Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Marshall and Katie Rae climb into the johnboat. Katie Rae cranks the motor and steers them out into the river.
The two labs stand like statues on the edge of the dock and Rhetta, the poodle, barks and yips for them to take her too.
“You know, LeMar,” Kitty B. says. “This has nothing to do with you.”
He leans back in the rocking chair and closes his eyes. She stands there staring at him for a whole minute, and she knows he just hopes she’ll disappear.
“Stop tuning me out.” Somehow Kitty B. gets the nerve to stand right in front of him and lean down on the arms of his rocking chair so that he is forced to sit upright.
When he opens his eyes she says, “First, you are not going to die and you know it. Angus says it’s probably just another CFS symptom. No one here has written you off, except maybe you. And as for Katie Rae, did you ever stop to think that she is one year older than I was when we got married?”
He closes his eyes again and shakes his large head gently back and forth. “Oh, and we’ve had a marriage made in heaven,” he says.
Kitty B. stands up straight, her knees trembling, and wonders what to say next. How in the world did they come to this? How did they go from adoring one another the way Marshall and Katie Rae do to hardly having a relationship at all? They live two separate lives under their crumbling roof, and as far as Kitty B. can tell, the only feeling LeMar has toward her is contempt.
She goes and cuts the CD player off and walks back out to the porch with her back to him, watching the black ripples from Katie Rae’s wake slap the edge of the mud banks. The salt marsh is starting to turn from green to brown, and by December they’ll be such a pale, ashen gray that she will have a hard time believing they will ever regain their color.
“Well, I don’t know what we can do about the mess we’re in, LeMar,” she says. “But I do know that we shouldn’t drag Katie Rae down with us.”
He closes his eyes again, and she turns to face him.
“This nice man loves her,” she says. “He respects her and sees what very few people have seen in her, and if we forbid her from taking hold of that, then we may very well ruin her chance at happiness.
”
LeMar plays dead.
“Now I’m going to wait down at the dock for them,” she says. “And I’m going to tell them that they have my blessing to get married and they should proceed with or without you. You hear me?”
He pinches his face, and short dark marks run across his lips like a crudely drawn time line. She turns and walks toward the dock as Honey and Otis run up to greet her. Rhetta remains at the water’s edge, barking into the air.
As Kitty B. takes her seat on the dock, she pats the dogs who are vying for her attention. Their muddy paws leave streaks across her apron. It’s the hot pink apron that the gals bought her when she finished the church cookbook, and it has “Editor-in-Chief, Lowcountry Manna” embroidered on the front with the publication date.
The gals seem excited about Katie Rae’s engagement. Kitty B. doesn’t know why LeMar can’t be. It’s been a fast courtship, but goodness knows they never thought Katie Rae was ever going to move out of their house, much less meet a man and marry him. It’s a practical miracle as far as Kitty B. can tell, and as happy as Marshall is, it seems they should be thanking the good Lord for His grace.
Now the goats bleat across the fence as the sun makes its way down toward the water’s edge. When it rises again Kitty B. will drive LeMar down to the Medical University in Charleston for his third MRI of the year. The old paranoid curmudgeon.
He’s been sick and aching more often than not since she’s known him, and some days it seems like he takes great satisfaction in his sufferings the way a tongue can’t help but work its way over a sore tooth.
The doctors will look at him. Look at the inner workings of his body and wonder why he is such a head case. Why he wants to believe that he has some fatal disease. Then they’ll look at me. She shakes her head. They’ll look at me and wonder, “Why does this fellow want to die so badly? He must have an astoundingly horrible home life.”
The Wedding Machine Page 13
