The Wedding Machine

by Beth Webb Hart

  “Y’all go on.” Ray shoos them away with one flap of the back of her hand. The gals scuttle through the garden toward the door where they take turns banging for twenty minutes. They don’t hear a peep out of Hilda.

  “I’ll be right back.” Ray makes two fists and heads through the gates.

  She runs home and gets the megaphone that Cousin Willy uses from time to time on the campaign trail. She marches back into Hilda’s front garden and yells into the mouthpiece, “Hilda, if you don’t come down here right now, I’m going to call the police and have them tear down this front door. Do you hear me?”

  For a moment Ray thinks she spots some movement behind the curtains upstairs in Hilda’s bedroom, and they wait for several minutes on the front piazza for the door to open.

  When it doesn’t, Kitty B. plops down on the porch, takes off her heels, and rubs at her swollen feet. Sis takes off her choir robe and joins Kitty B. as Ray paces back and forth, considering their next move.

  “Y’all think I should call up again?”

  “No,” Sis says. “Let’s give her a little while.”

  “Wonder what happened,” Kitty B. says, trying to hold back a walrus-sized yawn. “Should we call Angus?”

  Just then Ray’s cell phone rings, and Cousin Willy is on the other end. She pops off her clip-on pearls and pulls the phone close to her ear. “Where are you?”

  “Well, I’m sitting here with Angus in the emergency room in Ravenel. He drove out to the deer stand with a gash the size of my thumb across his forehead and asked me if I would tote him over here.”

  “Well, what did he say happened?” She looks at the girls, and she can feel the worry lines forming across her forehead.

  “He and Trudi have a set a date to get married,” Willy says. “He went over to tell Hilda, and she went berserk. Threw a bunch of silver at him and beat on his car.”

  “Oh, my word,” Ray says. “Is he all right?”

  “Nothing a few stitches won’t take care of.”

  Ray snaps her phone shut and gives the gals the news in a hushed tone. Sis grabs her mouth and her eyes start to water.

  “Poor Hilda,” Kitty B. says, shaking her head back and forth so that her gray strings of hair sway this way and that. She leans forward and says in a hushed tone, “I think she always thought he would come back.”

  Ray shakes her head and studies the black Vaneli pumps she bought at Belk’s the last time she was in Charleston. They’re scuffed up now from her dash back to the house for the megaphone.

  She sits down on the arm of the bench. “I’m worried about her in there. Do y’all think I should get someone over here to get this door open?”

  Just as the words come out of her mouth, a piece of Hilda’s fine Crane’s monogrammed stationery slips out of the mail slot in the front door and lands on the brick floor of the piazza.

  Sis jumps up and grabs it. Then she reads it to the others:

  “Don’t you dare call the police, Ray Montgomery. I’m not dead, and I’m not planning on doing anything else destructive today. However, I will not come out of this house. I won’t come out today, I won’t come out this year, and I might not come out this decade. If you try to get in here by force, you’ll regret it. It will be over my dead body. Do you understand?” Sis looks up. “And it’s signed H.”

  Ray shakes her head in frustration as Sis folds the note back. Just who does Hilda thinks she is, threatening her like that? And anyway, how in the world is she going to survive in there?

  “Anybody have a pen?” Sis asks.

  “What in the world for?” Ray says.

  “I’m going to write her back.”

  “Oh, good.” Kitty B. offers a sticky pen she’s scrounged up from the bottom of her large, lumpy pocketbook. “I think you should.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Ray says, grabbing the pen out of Kitty B.’s hand. She throws the pen on the bricks and runs over to the door and starts banging on it.

  “Hilda, open this door right now! I know you’re downstairs, and we want to lay our eyes on you.”

  Ray runs over to the window and peers inside, but Hilda is nowhere to be seen. The inside of the house looks perfectly intact except for the dining room where four long white candles lie haphazardly around the Oriental rug beneath the table.

  Ray picks up the megaphone and starts to holler to the upstairs. “Now just what are you going to do? Stay in there forever? How do you plan on surviving? Barbour’s Grocery only delivers on Tuesdays now!”

  “Wednesdays,” Sis whispers.

  “Oh, whatever,” Ray shouts. “Now stop this foolishness and let us in!”

  Sis, who pulled the pen out of the bricks just after Ray threw it down, shows Kitty B. what she wrote on the back side of the note, then she slips it through the mail slot.

  “Don’t play her stupid game, Sis!” Ray calls through the megaphone. “She’s got to grow up and come out. She can’t spend another year cooped up in here.”

  “Ray,” Kitty B. says gently. “I think you need to settle down, honey.”

  “Me too,” Sis says, turning to face Ray. “Hilda’s had what may be the worst day of her life, and the last thing she needs is for us to shout at her through some megaphone. She needs some time, and if we’re her friends, we should give it to her.”

  Ray rolls her eyes at them both. Then she puts the apparatus back to her mouth. “I’m coming back tomorrow, Hilda. And I expect you to open this durn door!”

  “Ray,” Sis calmly pulls the megaphone out of her clutches. “Stop that.”

  Kitty B. nods and neither of them look away when Ray stares them both down.

  Ray grabs her forehead. “I don’t see how y’all can put up with this dramatic nonsense. I can hardly stand it anymore.”

  Sis and Kitty B. take Ray lightly by the arms and lead her out of the garden and through the iron gate. As they walk back toward the church, Sis says, “Why don’t we call her tonight? She did answer the phone when she went into hiding before. And we can take turns dropping by over the next few days. I think she’ll let us in eventually.”

  “All right,” Kitty B. says. “I’ll drop by tomorrow on my way to the cookbook meeting. I can drop off something for her to eat too. We can take turns with that. Maybe bring her a little of whatever we’re having for supper for the next few days.”

  Ray doesn’t say a word, but she faintly nods in agreement. Hilda is the most selfish, stubborn woman she has ever known, and she can’t believe she didn’t come down and let them in. They are her best friends.

  As they round the corner into the church parking lot, she takes a deep breath and says, “I guess I’ll call Little Hilda and tell her what’s going on. The Princess of Jasper has locked herself up in her house again, and this time she’s not even talking from behind her door.”

  As Sis and Kitty B. walk to their cars, Ray puts her fist on her hip and says, “Sis?”

  “Yes?”

  “What did you write on that note to Hilda?”

  Sis stops just before she opens the door of her little Toyota and says, “I just wrote, ‘We understand.’”

  Ray raises her eyebrows as Sis nods and hops into her car.

  “Well,” she hollers as Sis starts her engine. “Well, I don’t understand!”

  FIFTEEN

  Ray

  It’s been ten days since Hilda locked herself in the house, and no one has heard a peep from her since. Little Hilda and the gals have tried to call her every day, but she has yet to respond. The only note she has written is to Little Hilda and all it said was:

  Please understand, sweetheart. I need some time alone. Love, Mama

  The day after Hilda went into hiding, Kitty B. made up a schedule and for the next several days, the gals took turns every evening knocking on the door and dropping off a little portion of whatever they were having for dinner. She has yet to answer the door, but she does clean the casserole dishes from the dropped-off meals. They are always waiting in a shopping bag on t
he bench on the piazza at the crack of dawn the next morning—the only evidence that she’s still alive in there.

  Today Ray happens to have a doctor’s appointment scheduled with Angus.

  It’s her first time back to see him since her two-year detour to Dr. Arhundati’s. His office looks a little different than she remembers. He has new wallpaper—kind of a bright and gaudy tropical print, and there are faux tropical flower arrangements on every table in the waiting room. The worst part is the smell. Some kind of sweet pineapple air fresheners are plugged in a few of the electric sockets, and the stench is thick and nearly unbearable. Ray’s got a headache by the time she’s finished the first sentence in an old Time magazine she unearthed from a pile of People and Us stacked on the waiting room coffee tables. Where are the Southern Living s anyway? Must be Trudi’s influence. Hilda would just die if she saw this.

  When the nurse shows Ray to the examining room, she is relieved. It’s just as she remembers—a simple white and green striped wallpaper, an old burgundy pleather examining table, and a counter lined with various medical instruments as well as jars of tongue depressors, bandages, and lollipops.

  Ray remembers taking William here when he jumped off the second-story piazza and broke his arm. That was one awful break. Oh, and then there was the time she accidentally put the ringworm medicine on Priscilla’s eczema, and she feared her beautiful daughter might be scarred for life. The small dark splotches didn’t leave her arms for months.

  There is a quiet tap on the door, and in walks Angus with a large bandage above his eyebrow.

  “Hi there, Ray,” he says.

  Ray sucks her teeth and motions toward his eye. “She got you good, didn’t she?”

  Angus nods and rubs his forehead. “Yep,” he says. “Real good.” He leans his elbow on the counter. “Have you heard from her?”

  “No. Not a peep. She’s gone into hiding again, and I don’t know when she’ll come out. Won’t even answer the phone this time.”

  He takes out a handkerchief from his back pocket and pats at his forehead.

  “I feel for her, Ray,” he says. “I tried for years to get through to her, you know?” Ray nods sympathetically as he continues, “But she never made one move toward getting help. And now I’ve got to get on with my life.”

  “I know,” Ray says. “I understand. She’s the most difficult woman I’ve ever known.”

  Angus nods and taps his chin with the back of his pen. He stares at some place on the wall behind Ray.

  She studies the bandage on his forehead and continues. “I’m trying my best to come up with some way to get her back out of that house. I worry about what will happen to her if she stays in there.”

  “I do too, Ray,” he says, furrowing his brow. “But keep trying. You gals might be the only ones who can force some sense into her. I certainly never could.”

  He scans the jars neatly arranged on his counter and turns back to her.

  “What can I do for you?”

  “You can prescribe me some of those heavenly hormones,” Ray says. “So I won’t lose my mind or melt away with these hot flashes. And yes, I’ve read about the risks and I don’t think they are significant enough to bother me. The benefit outweighs them, my friend.”

  “All right.” He chuckles. “I hear you. And how about those fibroid tumors, are you still suffering?”

  “From time to time,” she says. “Oh, and my hair is falling out too. Isn’t that lovely?” Then she points to the scar on her cheekbone. “And this awful thing doesn’t seem like it’s going away. Do you think I should see a plastic surgeon about it?”

  Angus looks at her scar in the light. “Let’s give it another six months, and then we’ll see.”

  He steps back, folds his arms, and smiles at her. “As for the hair, I’ll give you the name of the dermatologist in Charleston who can help you. It’s not that uncommon. However, if you continue to suffer from the tumors after you’re on the HRT for a few months, you may want to consider a hysterectomy.”

  Ray nods and says, “I will consider it. Maybe after we get through the next wedding season.”

  Angus shakes his head in agreement, then gives her a quick exam and the little white slip of paper with his signature and sends her on her way.

  “Oh, yes!” she murmurs as she drives over to Myrtle’s Pharmacy. “Sanity, here I come!”

  As Ray exits the pharmacy, Vangie comes scooting up on her golf cart with a client in tow. She’s got a picture of Little Bit in an ornate silver frame superglued to her dashboard, and at the bottom of the frame is an inscription:

  Little Bit Dreggs April 20, 1999–October 8, 2005 All creatures great and small. The Lord God made them all.

  “Ray,” she says, waving her hands. “I’ve got to fill you in on the meeting. We’ve got another one this Sunday too.”

  “Meeting?” Ray thinks. She is surprised Mrs. Graydon and Gus didn’t nip that whole revival day in the bud.

  “Okay,” she says. “I’ll try and make it.”

  As she opens her car door, Vangie speeds up next to her. “How’s Hilda?” she says.

  Ray looks at the stranger sitting next to Vangie. It’s a woman about her age dressed in a white tennis skirt and an orange knit shirt. She’s wearing a visor and two diamond stud earrings the size of the raspberries Ray bought at the farmer’s market on Edisto last weekend.

  Vangie turns to the woman and says, “Just a little small-town drama.” She nods toward Ray. “Nothing this gal can’t handle.”

  “I’m Ray Montgomery.” She gently extends her hand toward the stranger.

  “Well, I’m sorry,” Vangie says. “This is Donna Zimmerman. A client from New Jersey.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Ray says.

  “In fact,” Vangie says, “our next stop is the Allston house across the street from you. A developer has bought that property, and he’s going to subdivide the main house into several condominiums and add a second set in the backyard.”

  Ray feels her jaw drop open. “Condominiums?” she says. “Across the street from me?”

  “The demand is high,” Vangie says as she inches toward the road. She turns back and calls, “Let me know what happens with Hilda, okay?”

  And why is it any of your business? Ray wants to call back, but she wouldn’t dare. Not in front of a stranger anyway.

  “All right,” she says, clutching her brown bag. Then she starts her engine and zooms off before Vangie can say another word.

  When she gets home, she pops the little green pills of estrogen and progesterone, and Willy comes bobbing into the kitchen.

  “You look good,” she says, noting the spring in his step. Just as she is about to tell him the dreadful news about the Allston house across the street, he says, “I’m not as good as you’re going to be.”

  “What happened?” she asks. “Did Hilda come out?”

  “Nah,” he says. He pulls a can of Co-Cola from the fridge and pops it open before leaning toward her and whispering, “But Priscilla’s beau called me at my office today.”

  Ray’s eyes grow wide and she runs over and grabs Willy’s shoulders. “He did?”

  “Yes ma’am,” he says. “Donovan’s flying down here next Thursday to meet with me. Wants to talk to me about something.”

  “You don’t think—”

  “I do,” he says. “He also wanted to know if you might be able to do a little shopping with him that afternoon.”

  “Ring shopping?” she says as she bounces on the balls of her feet.

  “We won’t know until he gets here,” Cousin Willy says. “But I can’t imagine another reason he might be calling.”

  SIXTEEN

  Kitty B.

  The gals say it’s only proper for the groom’s family to contact the bride’s family after the engagement, but when three weeks go by without so much as a peep from the Benningtons, Kitty B. asks Ray for advice.

  “Just pick up the phone and call,” Ray says.

  Two
days later Kitty B. and the gals, minus Hilda, are traveling up Highway 17 to meet Pastor and Mrs. Roscoe Bennington at Christ on the Coast on Sam Rittenburg Boulevard. They’re all tastefully dressed in their favorite pantsuits and pearls. Of course Kitty B.’s bow is still taped to her left Ferragamo, and she checks on it every few minutes to make sure it’s still intact.

  Ray drives, as usual. She can’t stand to have anyone else at the wheel. She doesn’t even offer the front seat to either of them. She bought a gorgeous yellow orchid for Kitty B. to give to the Benningtons, and she thinks the front passenger seat is the safest place for it.

  Kitty B. is irritated to no end. LeMar ought to be with them making this visit—he is the father of the bride, after all—but he claims to have woken up with a rash all over his chest, though he won’t even let her see it.

  “Of all days, LeMar,” she said to him. “I suppose you just want to stay home then?”

  “Yes,” he said, “I do.” Then he closed his bedroom door in her face.

  Kitty B. was so mad she didn’t even make him his breakfast or a fresh pot of coffee. Instead she dropped three dog bones outside of his bedroom, waddled down the steps, and opened the front door wide to let the dogs in.

  “There,” she said as she drove down the dirt road and over to Ray’s. “Those rascals will keep him busy.”

  “Do you think this church is in a strip mall?” Ray asks ever so tentatively, as they squint through the window and across the parking lots trying to make out the addresses on the glass doors of the flat-topped shopping complexes.

  “Well, I don’t see how it can’t be.” Sis looks back and forth down the four lane road as they pass Skatell’s and TJ Maxx.

  “Now what did they say it was across from?” Ray glances over her shoulder at Kitty B.

  “The Chuck E. Cheese,” Kitty B. says as she inspects her chicken scratch on a crumpled recipe card. “It’s across from the Chuck E. Cheese and just to the left of the Pet Superstore.”

  Kitty B. makes a face at Sis, who can’t help but let out a giggle. “I know.” Kitty B. shakes her head. “How awful do you suppose it’s going to be?”