The Wedding Machine

by Beth Webb Hart

  “See you there.” She gently nods.

  “Enjoyed it, Sis,” he says as he turns and walks toward his sedan. She lets herself in and watches him through her window as he meanders to the car. When he drives off she touches her cheek and tries to identify a pungent smell that she can’t quite pin down until, as his headlights hit the road, she realizes once again that it is the unmistakable scent of mothballs.

  She wishes she enjoyed Capers. How can she be so uninterested in such a godly man with a tender heart and heartbreaking story of rejection? She doesn’t know. Maybe she’s too critical of potential suitors. Perhaps that’s been her problem all along. Maybe she lacks enthusiasm about dating altogether now that she’s middle-aged and everything but her breasts have been removed. But there is that mothball smell and those clammy hands, and she doesn’t see how she can get past them.

  She sighs and goes to work shutting down her little place for the night—the routine of cutting off the lights, checking the stove, brushing her teeth. Ray is on the answering machine, and so is Kitty B., but she won’t call them back. There’s so little to report, and she feels terribly lukewarm about the whole thing.

  She climbs in bed with a novel she doesn’t want to read. It’s about a girl who thinks she inadvertently contributed to the murder of an old friend, but her husband is determined to prove to her and the world that she is innocent. It’s not such a bad read, but the fact is that Sis is tired of hearing about people living, loving, and dying on the thin yellowed pages of books while she remains trapped in this pattern of sameness like a caged lab rat that has been force-fed some age-defying pill. She’s weary of her mundane sleep-and-wake life. Her coffee-and-curl-her-hair-in-the-morning existence that repeats itself over and over like the formula in a romance novel.

  She knows she shouldn’t let her mind wander back to Fitz. But right now all she wants is to imagine the night they stole the watermelons to celebrate Ray’s arrival. She can hear the tomatoes plunking off the vines, and she can smell the open soil and the rinds of the melons already beginning to soften. They are out in the dark field, and Fitz rips the watermelon off the thin, tough vine as she looks up every so often at the black night before them.

  Then she thinks of the countless nights they drove back down that same road for years to come, in search of a secluded place to park. She can see the live oaks, the arc of their outstretched limbs, and the tunnel they formed around that sweet darkness that promised the quiet and seclusion they so desperately craved.

  “Should we pull over here? Or here?” he would say. This must be what married couples have in the privacy of their own homes when everyone is bedded down and the air is still and black. Fitz and Sis sought it as often as they could on that country road. They were hungry for it, groping and grasping at one another in a kind of sweet desperation. Then a light from a passing pickup truck would come by, and they felt exposed. Sis would lie still in the backseat as Fitz sat up and stared down the headlights, willing the car to pass without any trouble. Truth is, there was nowhere to go and be alone. And yet they pursued the promise of the patch of darkness before them as they drove down the country road—that black, gaping hole on the horizon that they never could reach.

  And now Sis can’t help but weep into her pillow. Something she swore off years ago. Something she thought the happy pills had taken away, but she supposes she can’t expect them to solve everything. She weeps and weeps and prays that Mrs. Johnson in the upstairs apartment doesn’t hear her and phone her mama or, worse than that, Ray. Tomorrow Sis will have to face the gals again, and they’ll want to know how it went, but she won’t have the heart to tell them that she’s hopeless.

  Suddenly she thinks of Hilda and her promise to write her about the date. She picks up a piece of notebook paper and scratches out what she hasn’t been able to say to her mama or any of the gals in all of these thirty years.

  I’m trapped in a time warp, Hilda. Trapped in the back of Fitz’s car, wanting only him and knowing that I’ll never have him—not on this earth, anyway. Why can’t I find my way out?

  She seals the letter in an envelope and even though it’s midnight, she puts on her jacket and walks the two blocks down to Third Street where she drops the letter through Hilda’s slot.

  Sis sees the light come on in the upstairs bedroom. Then she nods and walks home along the dark sidewalks of the quiet town. There, I’ve said it. The brown leaves from the live oak trees swirl around the street corner. And I’ve said it to someone who just might understand.

  EIGHTEEN

  Sis

  Katie Rae has gone on the Special K diet. She’s eating two bowls a day and then a salad for supper at night, and the pounds are dropping off.

  “Don’t lose anymore,” Ray says. “We won’t have time to take in the dress if you do.”

  It’s a month before the wedding, and they’re meeting over at Ray’s while Katie Rae gets her final fitting. Vangie Dreggs is there too. She’s arranged for a seamstress from Hilton Head to fill in for Hilda and take up the dress.

  Ray seems excited about something. So excited that she doesn’t seem annoyed by the seamstress or Vangie, who asks her to bring down the full-length mirror from her bedroom.

  She’s pacing back and forth with such a spring in her step that Sis calls Kitty B. into the bathroom. “What’s Ray got up her sleeve?”

  “I don’t know,” Kitty B. says. “She’s so blown up I think she’s going to pop.”

  “Hmm,” Sis rubs her lips with her index finger. “We don’t have Hilda to poke and prod her, so you and I are going to have to give it a try.”

  Kitty B. nods her head and says, “All right. You go first.”

  After the fitting, Vangie pins each of them down about volunteering at the upcoming revival healing day—Sis will do the music and Kitty B. will coordinate the luncheon. Then she excuses herself for a real estate closing down the street.

  Next Cricket comes by in the hearse to pick up Katie Rae and the seamstress and the dress and take them on over to the cleaners. And once the three gals are alone, Sis turns to Ray.

  “You’re more puffed up than a peacock, Ray,” Sis says, patting the sofa firmly. “Now sit down and tell us what is going on.”

  Ray spins around twice, plops down in the center of her Sheraton love seat, and adjusts her posture. Then she leans forward. “Donovan flew down to meet with Cousin Willy last week, and then I took him to Croghan’s in Charleston where we picked out the most gorgeous ring for Priscilla you ever saw.”

  “No!” Kitty B. says. “I can’t believe it!”

  Ray bounces up and down on her sofa like a child who is about to be fed a large slice of cake. She nods her head and her face burns with color. A thin lightning bolt-shaped vein on the side of her head surfaces. Sis and Kitty B. gather around and embrace her.

  “Can you believe it?” Ray says, squeezing her hands into tight fists. “Priscilla is going to get married to a wonderful doctor from Connecticut!”

  She looks them both in the eye and her pupils seem awfully dilated. Then she looks beyond them toward the portrait of Priscilla in her debutante gown above the hearth and says, “We’ve got to pick a date and select the invitations and find a gown!”

  “I think she should wear my gown,” Sis blurts out and Ray turns to her with a look that is some disconcerting mixture of sweetness and sympathy.

  “Why not?” Sis opens her hands wide. “It’s so stylish and delicate and Priscilla will think it’s retro by now. Sort of a Jackie-O look. She’s into that vintage style, isn’t she?”

  Well, why shouldn’t she offer it? The gorgeous gown is still hanging in her childhood closet at her mama’s house wrapped in the cocoon of some old yellowed bed sheets. She bought it the month after Fitz left for Vietnam.

  ~ SEPTEMBER 17, 1969 ~

  Sis never had a feeling that something would happen to Fitz until the day she and her mama drove to Atlanta to try on the dress. She was an only child, so her mama wanted to go all out
for her wedding. They had reserved Magnolia Plantation for the reception because it would take place during the peak of the azalea blossoms. Her mama had hired a caterer from Charleston and a florist from Atlanta, and Roberta and their generation of the wedding machine were handling the rest. Fitz’s mama was a wonderful baker, and she invited Sis over several times to taste test a variety of flavors for the wedding cake.

  They had ordered the invitations—Crane’s, no less—and Sis’s mama had sent off to get the Mims family crest, which is a handsome coat of arms with a knight’s helmet and a shield with three stars and a lion standing up on his hind legs. The dye is what the stationery lady in Charleston called it, and it would be imprinted in the center at the top of the wedding invitation. It cost an absolute fortune, but her mama wanted everything to be just so.

  Sis is not one that worries. She inherited that disposition from her mama. Sis’s daddy, on the other hand, always worried about everything. He worked for Hilda’s father as the personnel manager at the mill, and he was constantly worried that the union would get in when his back was turned.

  He worried about accidents too. Once he stepped on one of the kittens from their house cat’s umpteenth litter. Sis will never forget her poor daddy picking up that limp kitten and cradling it in the palm of his hands. He literally wept for hours. Then he wouldn’t even go into the den where the litter was. He made his way to the stairwell from the kitchen and went to bed without smoking his pipe—like he enjoyed doing in the den each evening—until all the kittens had been given away.

  Well, when Sis’s daddy heard that Fitz was enlisting, she could see by the sagging jowls on his long face that he was concerned. He would watch the evening news reports of the war with a great intensity, and turn it off whenever she came through the room.

  Sis and her mama were in Atlanta, and she was trying on a wedding gown. The dress was glorious. It had an elegant off-the-shoulder bodice with lace and beading and a silk A-line skirt with beading all along the edge and the train. Sis was always a little person, and it didn’t overpower her. It was just right.

  Then her mama brought out the lace veil with scalloped edges Sis had bought in Italy the summer between her sophomore and junior years of college. She leaned forward and, as soon as the sales lady helped her mama fasten the veil with bobby pins, they turned Sis around to face the three-way mirror, and she looked herself in the eye and thought: He’s not coming home.

  Eight days later they got the call. Sis and her parents were taking a break from going over the guest list. They were sipping Co-Colas on the back porch when Mr. Hungerford’s Chevrolet pulled up in their driveway. It was the one that Fitz and Sis had spent countless hours in the backseat of throughout high school and college. She knew its leathery smell and every curve of the upholstery from the humid nights spent making out on the edge of town.

  Sis’s mama looked at her. Her daddy grabbed the glass out of Sis’s hand and nodded for her to greet Mr. Hungerford. She walked down the steps and met him as he stepped out of the car. His lips were gray and pursed, and she noticed the loose skin beneath his chin wriggle like a gizzard’s as he said, “Sis, honey.” And that was all he could say.

  Yes, Sis thought. Yes, of course he’s gone, but she said, “No.” And she grabbed Mr. Hungerford’s arms and tugged at them hard as she fell down on her knees. The poor man shook his head briskly back and forth and knelt down beside her and let her fall into his tall, thin chest as Sis’s mama came up behind her and rubbed her back with her gentle, little hands as if she’d failed a math test or fallen off her bike. Her daddy seemed paralyzed in his porch seat with his large hands around his head. She could hear him weeping into his soft, white handkerchief. Later Sis would learn that Fitz had stepped on a land mine less than a mile from his base.

  The dress arrived a month later. Sis’s mama had cancelled the reservations, the caterer, the florist, and the invitations, but she had completely forgotten about the dress. Sis was walking a piano student to his bicycle when the postman arrived with the package. Her mama was driving up from a trip to the grocery at the same time, and she tried to intercept it. Mrs. Mims left her car door open and waved at the postman to get his attention as she ran toward him, but she was too late.

  Sis grabbed the package and ran up to her room and tore it open. She just had to try it on. It was glorious. The bodice was snug in all the right spots, and the beading on the silk skirt was exquisite. She had a little trouble fastening the silk covered buttons, but she contorted her arms in all sorts of ways to get the center ones fastened as her mama knocked and knocked on the door. She could hear her daddy weeping once again as she put on her makeup and her white kid gloves and positioned the veil just so.

  Then Sis phoned Kitty B. and Ray and Hilda from the closet in her bedroom, and they raced over at once to see her in it. Kitty B. was already pregnant with Cricket by that time, and she could hardly get up the stairs.

  “This is not a good idea, girls,” Sis’s mama said as Ray and Hilda pushed Kitty B. up toward Sis’s room. “This is only going to make it worse.”

  “Oh, just let her show it to us, Mrs. Mims,” Hilda said. She pushed through Sis’s mama and banged on her door, “We’re here, gal.”

  Sis unlocked the door and Hilda opened it and her mama and daddy gasped as she turned to face them. Kitty B. burst into tears and Hilda smiled and Ray shook her head and said, “It’s magnificent, Sis. You’re the most stunning bride I’ve ever seen.”

  Now Sis looks up at her two friends who are staring at her from the couch. She doesn’t know how long she’s faded out, but Kitty B. stands and pats her back and Ray musters up a response to the offer.

  Sis can see the wheels turning in Ray’s head, and she has no idea what she is going to say. She probably thinks it’s bad luck or something, to wear her wedding gown.

  “That might be an idea, Sis,” Ray finally says. Then she furrows her brow. “Of course, Priscilla is a little taller than you, and she’s a little bustier too. It might not fit, you know?”

  “That’s true,” Sis says. She wants to give her an out because maybe the dress is bad luck or at least Ray might worry that it is, and Ray ought to enjoy her daughter’s wedding after all she’s done for everyone else.

  “Never mind,” Sis says. “It probably won’t work, and I’m sure Priscilla would like to pick out something new.” She quickly excuses herself. The gals assume she’s going to the church for her daily organ practice.

  “Say hi to Capers,” Kitty B. says.

  “I’ve told you, Kitty B.,” Sis turns back to say. “There is nothing between us.” But what Sis hasn’t told either of them is that Capers asked her out twice more in the last month, and she turned him down both times. The second time they were standing over the copy machine in the church office, and she took him by the arm and said, “Capers, I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but this just doesn’t feel right.”

  He stared for a moment at the reams and reams of paper stacked beside the copier and said, “Thank you for being honest with me.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said.

  Then he looked up and met her eyes. “God does have a plan for each of us.”

  She bit her lip and nodded. “I hope so.”

  Now as Sis walks out into the crisp December afternoon, some of the last leaves from Ray’s maple tree swirl down onto the brown grass. Instead of going to church she walks the few houses down to her mama’s old home and goes up to her room. The wedding dress hangs at the far end of her closet, and she stops to breathe in the stale air for a moment before she pulls it down and carries it out to her car where she shoves it in the trunk.

  “Where are you going with that dress, Sis?” Kitty B. calls from her car window.

  Sis looks up, guilty. She thinks I’ve gone and lost it for sure now. She straightens up. “Goodwill.”

  “Oh, now Sis, don’t do that.” Kitty B. parks her car and opens the door toward Sis.

  Next Ray comes running
out of the front door and along the brick path toward the opening of her garden gate that leads to the street.

  “Now, look what we’ve done!” Kitty B. says to Ray as they move in on Sis.

  “Don’t come any closer,” Sis says, holding up her hand to stop them.

  “Sis Mims,” Ray says. “Hand me that dress right now.”

  “No,” Sis says, turning to her. “I will not.”

  Kitty B. looks over to Ray in disbelief.

  “It really might work for Pris,” Ray says. “Here, let me see it.”

  “No it won’t, Ray,” Sis says as Kitty B., her eyes brimming with tears, inches closer toward the dress.

  “It’s okay, Kitty B.” Sis holds up a hand to stop her.

  “It’s something I need to do. Somebody might like a dress like this. It’s not bad luck or anything. But more than that, I’ve just got to get rid of it, you know? If I have to face it when I’m cleaning out that house after Mama dies, I might lose my mind for good. This dress has been hanging in my closet for thirty-four years now, and I need to get rid of it. Can’t you understand?”

  Kitty B. nods and pats her eyes with the tips of her fingers. Sis waves her away and says, “C’mon now. This is old. This is history. And I’ve got to find a way to put it behind me.”

  Sis doesn’t look back to Kitty B. or to Ray. She can’t. Instead, she just slams down the trunk and doesn’t even worry about the fact that a little bit of the sheet and the tip of the beaded train are hanging out of the back. She just hopes a bird doesn’t crap on them.

  “’Bye, gals,” she says as she gets in her car without giving them another look. The faster she does this, the better she will feel. She just knows it. She just knows it. And she tells this to herself over and over as she races down Third Street onto Main and crosses over the railroad tracks toward Ravenel where the Goodwill sits right between a K-Mart and a Buck’s Pizza.

  Whew! She hits the open road of Highway 17. I feel better already.