Chin Up, Honey
Page 7
Finally Johnny called a halt. He hugged and kissed Emma, and hugged his father and grandmother, and Gracie was hugged by everyone, too. Then the two young people roared away in the Mustang, down the lane, and it was as if they took a lot of the air with them when they went.
Emma’s mother followed, driving away much more slowly in her aging and faded Impala, going to her garden apartment over at MacCoy Senior Living Center.
Watching her mother’s car until it was out of sight, Emma was struck with a wave of melancholy. Her mother had moved out to live near them in Oklahoma two years ago, because most all of her immediate family—the Macombs—had died. The exceptions were a couple of aunts who were mentally out of this world and one sister with whom Emma’s mother had never gotten along. Even most of the Macomb cousins had died or gone off out of sight. Somehow the Macombs tended to lose members of the family. They seemed to go off to the grocery store or away on vacation and never return. They had not been especially close people, yet they had been Emma’s people. She barely knew her father’s family and didn’t count them at all.
Now, here were Emma and her mother, the end of that branch of the Macomb family tree. Emma thought about how someday her mother would be gone, and she, Emma, would move up into her place as the last matriarch. It appeared Gracie would be the one to move into Emma’s place. She felt sad and grateful at the same time. She had prayed for years for a daughter. It appeared that Gracie was the answer to that prayer. Thank You, God.
With high emotion filling her heart for the second time that day, she walked back into the house, which seemed starkly empty and silent, as it always did when Johnny left. Except, of course, for the television that John Cole was once more watching.
She finished tidying the kitchen, then sat at the kitchen table with a yellow tablet to compose the engagement announcement for the newspaper. She went through five pages before she got it exactly how she wanted it. She ended with the line: A September wedding is planned in Valentine, where the two plan to make their home.
She imagined it. The voices and laughter of grandchildren would fill the house. She would have children around her again, to cook for and kiss boo-boos, sing lullabyes, read books. They would need to get another calm riding horse to join Old Bob, and the children would ride in the afternoons. They would have to get a permanent dog, and not just the stray hound who passed by on occasion to be fed out the back door. And build a tree house. She could still do something like build a tree house. On rainy days she would bake cookies and make blanket forts in the living room.
She was in the midst of imagining all of these wonderful things when John Cole came in to get a Coke and bag of corn chips, and asked her what she was doing.
“Writing the engagement announcement,” she told him happily, and then read it to him.
His response when she finished was, “Have they said they are makin’ their home in Valentine?”
“Well…not straight out. But a house down here in Valentine will be much less expensive than one up there in Lawton. Where do you think they will live?” She did not know why John Cole always had to make comments that just threw cold water all around.
“I don’t know. I just asked.”
“I’m lookin’ forward to them livin’ nearby and to havin’ grandchildren to enjoy. Aren’t you?”
“I haven’t thought about it. I guess so.”
She found that answer unsatisfactory. “Don’t you want grandchildren?”
“That isn’t what I said, Emma. I haven’t even thought about it. We only found out a few days ago that Johnny was gettin’ married.”
“Well, it certainly isn’t like a big surprise. He’s a grown man…lots older than you and I when we married. It has been a fair assumption since he was a baby that one day he would be grown and havin’ babies of his own. That is what people do. I’ve imagined it.”
“That is not somethin’ I have done, okay? I’m not like you, Emma. I don’t go imaginin’ all sorts of things.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I don’t sit around and think like you do, that’s all.”
“What is wrong with thinkin’?” She did not appreciate him criticizing her, which she knew he was doing, no matter how innocent he tried to make it out to be. He had always accused her of imagining things.
“Nothing. I just am not like you, Emma. I don’t spend a lot of time thinkin’ everything six ways from Sunday.”
“I don’t see anything wrong with thinkin’ about the future and plannin’ for it. You can’t have anything if you don’t plan for it. Everything that is here was planned first.” She gestured, indicating the surrounding kitchen.
“I didn’t say there was anything wrong with it, and I didn’t say I don’t plan. I just don’t think about the same things that you do.” He was edging out the door.
“Obviously,” she said, annoyed and a little embarrassed, because the entire argument was stupid. She couldn’t even figure out how they’d gotten into it.
Later that night, she got all excited about an idea that came to her. She went to the family room to tell John Cole, which likely was a mistake, since he was watching the replay of a NASCAR race.
“Why don’t we have a pool put in for the barbeque? The younger people would really like that, and then we’ll already have it for when we get grandchildren.”
John Cole looked startled. “That’s a big project. I don’t know if you could get a pool and the yard all finished in time for the barbeque.”
“Oh, sure we can,” Emma said, delighted to have a rebuttal for that excuse. “Charlene MacCoy got one put in last summer. She said it was amazing how quickly it all got done. I think she said it only took about a month.”
John Cole’s response was to throw around a lot more cold water by pointing out the expense of a pool in addition to the expenses of the wedding and the gift of the honeymoon, and all sorts of things that could come up, such as having to go to Baltimore for the wedding.
Emma, who had also been thinking all day about having the inside of the house painted, said, “Well, a pool will be an investment. We’ve talked about one before, and I want one for when we have grandkids. I’ll just look into it. It won’t hurt to see.”
She really wished John Cole would have confidence in her good sense. She had not once in all their married years gone overboard with spending. She had pinched pennies as much as he had for many years, and as a result he now enjoyed a comfortable home. He just could not seem to see that they did not have to pinch pennies anymore. Of course, when he wanted something, he darn well got it. It all just made her so mad that she had to go clean the kitchen sink, then move on to scrubbing the floor.
As she was getting ready for bed, she went to the window and looked out into the dark expanse of the yard, imagining a pool sparkling beneath the moon.
The thought came: she and John Cole might like to sit out beside the pool at night, or even go skinny-dipping. Maybe that would get him away from the television.
Then she suddenly realized that in the background of all her fantasies of their growing family was John Cole. He was there in her images—supervising the building of the pool—and a new patio, of course—the purchase of a horse for the grandchildren, sawing the wood for the tree house, dragging blankets from high shelves and putting together tricycles.
Sitting with her and talking, holding her hand, kissing her…making love.
She tried imagining life without John Cole. Family suppers, grandchildren, the living room with his recliner and him not in it. She could not do it. In fact, she felt a little panic about it.
It suddenly occurred to her that she was doing exactly what John Cole had said she did: thinking everything six ways from Sunday.
And a very good thing that one of them did some thinking, she thought, going into the closet and putting on her slinky silk nightgown that she liked to wear to remind herself—and hopefully John Cole—that she was a woman.
She fluffed the large bed pillow
s and settled herself against them in an artful, womanly manner. She wanted to present an attractive picture when John Cole came through the door and found her there. She imagined a number of compelling things to say to him.
It turned out not to matter, though, because John Cole did not even come to bed. He fell asleep in his recliner and slept there all night. Probably not thinking at all.
10
Winston and Willie Lee
Earlier in the spring, when elderly Winston Valentine came upon an old electric wheelchair at a yard sale, he bought it and began using it to help him get around town. The wheelchair’s electric motor shortly proved unreliable, however, so Willie Lee often ended up pushing. Quite quickly the pair became a familiar sight on the streets of Valentine—the old man wearing a straw cowboy hat and riding in a wheelchair pushed by a boy with a Dallas Cowboys ball cap, invariably on crooked, and followed by a spotted dog.
Most days after their morning radio program, Winston took Willie Lee to the Main Street Café for lunch, because Willie Lee’s mother hounded them both about eating vegetables. Afterward they would go across the street to Blaine’s Soda Fountain to get ice cream.
Winston insisted that Willie Lee abandon the idea of the extra distance required to use the crosswalk and cut across in the middle of the block, often holding up traffic. Winston often quite boldly used his advanced age and Willie Lee’s position as an eternally sweet mentally challenged person to do just what he wanted to do.
No one minded except First Deputy Lyle Midgette, and he had given up trying to get them to quit the illegal and hazardous practice. Deputy Midgette would much rather face any criminal than Mr. Winston’s sharp tongue. Half the time he was not even certain what Mr. Winston was saying. Whenever he saw the two crossing illegally, he would turn around and go in the opposite direction, so that he did not have to feel he was derelict in his duty. It was a comfort to know that the sheriff had admitted to the same thing, saying, “There’s no one who can tell Winston what to do.”
The boy would push Winston in the wheelchair through the door of the drugstore, and the old man would rise and call greetings to everyone as he walked across the room to the soda fountain. There he would spend half an hour or so holding court and pretty much pretending that he was at least twenty years younger. He would hand out cold sweet tea and latte and barbeque and banana splits, along with advice and opinions. On good days, Claire Ford would come in, slip up on a stool, smile at him and ask for a strawberry milkshake, her favorite. He would make it extra thick and watch her rosy tongue savor the sweet pink cream off the long-handled spoon. On really good days she would be without her husband, and Winston would imagine himself at least thirty years younger, and sometimes he almost got some excitement in his pants.
During this time when Winston was occupied, Willie Lee, with Munro quietly at his heels, would occupy himself in the magical world of the magazine section. The plate-glass windows of the drugstore had wide wooden windowsills just right for sitting and reading, which was why Belinda Blaine kept insisting the magazine section needed to be moved, but she could not figure out where else to put it. Willie Lee would sit on the windowsill, and look at magazines about bicycling and skating and skiing and car racing. He could not read the words, had even quit longing to read the words, but he looked at the pictures and dreamed of doing these things himself, just like a normal boy.
“Where’s your mama?” Winston asked Belinda on that afternoon’s visit to the drugstore soda fountain.
“She’s gone off with Jaydee.”
“With Jaydee?” This was a surprise. Startling, even. “Gone off to where?”
“I don’t know, just off.” While he was dealing with this, she added, “And Claire was already in earlier. You missed her. She and Larkin were goin’ off this afternoon to Dallas.”
Everyone was off, and here he was. His Claire had not even informed him about a trip to Dallas. There had been a time when she told him just about everything. Now, more and more, she was slipping away from him.
That day’s visit to the soda fountain proved a total disappointment. Not one person he even faintly wanted to see appeared. Lillian Jennings, who was always going on about something in history, came in and wanted to know what Winston knew about the War Between the States. He told her, “Nothin’. I’m not that damn old.” And then Deputy Lyle Midgette came in and said that they had not yet nabbed the thief who had made off with two wrenches and a cash box containing fifty-five dollars from Sybil Lund’s perpetual garage sale.
Winston had not told anyone about seeing the young man that the deputy had been chasing jumping over the pasture fence and hiding, and he didn’t want to speak of it now, because he didn’t want to appear old and forgetful. That he was becoming old and forgetful was too much to bear.
He realized that he wasn’t only forgetful, but that he was being forgotten. His two best friends were Vella and Claire, and they were at that moment occupied with other men. Younger, livelier men. And it was not too hard to be younger and livelier than him, who was in the very twilight of his life.
Over on the windowsill, Willie Lee felt Munro get to his feet and press against his leg. He looked at the dog, who looked back with dark eyes.
In his familiar manner of knowing things without hearing words, Willie Lee immediately put the magazine back in its correct place on the shelf, then went straight to the wheelchair and rolled it to the end of the soda fountain counter, where Mr. Winston was leaning on the freezer.
“Ah…buddy,” Winston said, taking note of him. “Let’s get our ice cream and blow this joint.”
He started to make their ice-cream cones, but Belinda said that she would do it and told him to sit down.
Vaguely aware that Belinda had ordered him and that he didn’t have the gumption to go back at her, and that she had never before offered to make him anything, he allowed her to do so and settled himself heavily into the wheelchair.
Willie Lee could not recall ever seeing Belinda make ice-cream cones. He stood nearby and watched. She was skimpy on the ice cream, but he didn’t think it a wise thing to say so to her.
With Winston carrying the desserts in a cardboard container on his lap, Willie Lee rolled him out onto the sidewalk and over to a bench beneath the shelter of a redbud tree, where they sat side by side and ate their cones, Munro licked his treat from a dish, and vehicles and people passed by. Most everyone cast a wave or called a greeting.
One of these was pretty little Gabby Smith, who waved enthusiastically out the passenger window of her mother’s minivan as the vehicle slowed in a line for the stoplight. “Hi, Willie Lee! Hi, Mr. Winston!”
There was in this feminine enthusiasm enough energy to cause Winston to smile and wave in return.
Willie Lee reacted by scrambling to his feet as fast as he could. Winston saw the boy’s ice cream tilting precariously on the cone.
“I heard you on the radio this mornin’,” called Gabby, pushing her curls out of her face as the minivan began to roll forward.
“I…I…hel-ped.” Willie Lee was on tiptoe at the edge of sidewalk.
“I listen every day. Come see me, Willie Lee!” Gabby called, leaning out the window as the minivan rounded the corner of Church Street and disappeared.
Winston reached out just in time to catch Willie Lee’s ice cream. It plopped into his hand. Willie Lee, blinking behind his thick glasses, looked from the now-empty cone to the mound of ice cream in Winston’s palm.
“Here ya’ go,” Winston said, and dropped the melting ice cream back on the cone.
“Thank you.” Willie Lee positioned himself back on the bench.
“You’re welcome.” Winston slung the excess ice cream from his palm, then held his hand out away from his clothes while he finished his own ice-cream cone. A man with his years behind him no longer worried about small inconveniences.
“Miss Gabby is still right sweet on you, I see.”
Willie Lee shrugged. Winston detected some gloom.
Willie Lee shrugged again. “I am not…grow-ing.”
“Well, yes, you are. Your mother had to buy you new jeans just last month, said you’d grown a foot.”
“She was ex-ag…ex-ag…”
“Exaggerating.”
Willie Lee nodded, then said in his practical manner, “People do not grow a foot in a month. Pa-pa Tate said.”
“But you have grown into larger pants,” Winston pointed out. “And you’re not done growin’ yet. Not by a long shot. Besides, even if Gabby grows taller, that doesn’t matter. Lots of tall gals go with shorter boys.”
He tried to think of an example and came up short, which seemed a funny pun. He hoped to remember it for his radio show. He liked to write down his thoughts, but his hands were busy at that moment.
Willie Lee said, “I mean…in-side.” He looked solemn. “I am re-tar-ded. I can-not have a girl-friend.” He hung his head, holding out his melting ice-cream cone.
“Eat your ice cream,” Winston said. Then, “Who told you that you cannot have a girlfriend because you are retarded?”
“Just some-one.” Willie Lee focused on licking his ice cream. It had been Mrs. Pruitt, the librarian at the Valentine library, who scared a lot of the children. Mrs. Pruitt had the idea that all the books in the library were her very own, and she would just as soon that children not be allowed to handle them.
“Yeah, well,” said Winston, “that someone is all wrong. Of course you can have a girlfriend.”
Winston considered pressing the boy to get the name of this someone and go set the person straight. Such a person was the type who liked to make other people feel small, mostly because they themselves were shriveled up.
Willie Lee interrupted Winston’s thoughts by saying, “I know I am slow, aannd I will ne-ver be fast-ter. At scho-ol I go to the class for spe-cial ed, but it means slow. Men-tal re-tar-da-tion. There is no cure.”