Chin Up, Honey

by Curtiss Ann Matlock

  There was a small discussion as to whether a thong qualified as with panty or without, and with won out, bringing the total count of panty wearers to eight, while the withouts remained at two: Emma and Vella.

  “Well, I’m flabbergasted,” Vella said.

  As Emma got into her car to drive home, she wondered if she might have been, all these years, a little bit free and loose without ever having known it. Not to have known seemed a very large shame.

  Belinda watched Emma disappear out the door, and beside her, her mother said, “You know, I think that is the first real conversation I’ve ever had with Emma Berry. And after knowin’ her all this time.”

  “She’s sort of a reserved person,” Belinda replied.

  She made herself a mental note not to speak about the intimate information she had learned the previous week. Sometimes things you swore not to talk about just popped out—as the news had from Emma herself when she had gotten wrought up and blurted out the situation with her marriage.

  Her mother was saying, “I used to see Emma around a lot more, when Johnny was young. Seemed like she was in here a couple of times a week, doin’ things with his school class. We never had a conversation, though. All that time, and never a conversation with her. Huh.”

  Belinda kept silent. Her mother no doubt would have more to say, because she always did.

  “These days people simply don’t take time to really talk to each other. We talk at each other, but not to,” her mother said, rising to clean the counter. “You want another glass of tea, sugar?”

  Belinda checked her watch as she pushed her glass forward. “Do you want to go wake up Oran for the evenin’ rush, or should I?”

  Oran Lackey was their latest new pharmacist. Most afternoons he fell asleep in the back of the pharmacy in her father’s old recliner. It was the oddest thing. Each pharmacist they hired started out pert as could be and ended up sluggish, just like her father had been. She really wanted to get the pharmacy area remodeled. She felt this would end that problem.

  “Let’s see if he wakes up by himself,” her mother said, then continued, “You know, that was mine and your daddy’s biggest problem. We could never really talk to each other. Oh, I talked, but it was like talkin’ to a wall. Your daddy just never said anything back. You can’t have a conversation like that. But I think I’ve finally figured it out—no one in your father’s family talked to each other. Every one of them had worked hard all their lives, and when you’re workin’ all the time, you don’t have time to talk. You just never really learn how. Maybe if I would have figured that out sooner, we could have learned how to talk…or maybe not.”

  Belinda reflected to herself that she and Lyle didn’t talk much and were very happy. She never had been drawn to Lyle because he was a great conversationalist.

  “And you know who really knows how to have a conversation?” her mother said.

  “Who?” Belinda supplied somewhat automatically, thinking suddenly that her mother really did look young for her age. So many people had asked Belinda in the past few days how old her mother really was. Belinda had kept saying sixty-five, as Winston had reported, because she had already mentally moved her own age back a few years. It seemed smart to start early, and truth about age was something that she remained very relaxed about. She was nearly eight years older than Lyle, but she never had let that bother her.

  “Jaydee.”

  “Oh, Mama.” Belinda had to turn away from the delight on her mother’s face.

  “I know he can be way too big for his britches, but let me just say that now I know how he managed to have so many women all these years.” She paused, then added thoughtfully, “He is an attorney. What does an attorney do? They talk for a livin’, so they really do know how to have a conversation. Jaydee even talks between kisses,” she added with a smile of happiness.

  “Mama, I do not want to hear about any of your sordid affairs, and least of all with Jaydee Mayhall.” Belinda moved to the cash register to count money, which was what she did in any uncertain moment. Then, with an awful thought, “I hope you are bein’ careful. Jaydee has had a lot of women.”

  “My…I am not havin’ an affair with him!”

  Her mother looked shocked and hurt, but Belinda thought that her assessment was reasonable.

  “And why would you call any of my affairs sordid?” her mother said, now putting a hand to her hip. “Why would any of them be any more sordid than you livin’ with Lyle for five years before you married him?”

  Belinda had the thought: Because you are a mother in her seventies. However, she said, “I’m sorry,” to end the discussion. Arguing with anyone was a waste of time, and certainly got her nowhere with her mother. She efficiently counted the money and placed it in the bank bag.

  Vella watched her daughter, who kept her attention focused on filling out the bank deposit slip. Vella almost stretched out her hand to touch her daughter’s arm, stopped, then swallowed. But time was fleeting.

  “Sugar…” She waited for Belinda to look at her. “Your father is gone now. Nothin’ I do or don’t do will bring him back…and I’m alive.”

  “I know that, Mom.” Belinda said.

  “I loved him the best I could.”

  Belinda’s eyes came up to hers. “Mama…you have no idea what it was like watchin’ you and Daddy all my life. That’s why I lived with Lyle for all those years before I married him. For one thing, I wanted to make sure that he wasn’t like Daddy, because I know I’m a whole lot like you, and I did not want to end up like you and Daddy.”

  Vella swallowed and gazed at her daughter, refusing to flinch from whatever Belinda needed to say to her. It was the most bare-bones honest moment she had ever shared with her daughter.

  Unfortunately, the bell over the door rang out and cut off the moment.

  Vella looked over to see Miss Lillian Jennings, who was Emma Berry’s mother, come across the store to the soda fountain at a good clip in her solid shoes, and with a magazine waving back and forth in one hand.

  “I ran into Minnie Oakes down the street, and she said Emma was here. But I see that I’ve missed her.” She glanced around, as if not to overlook her daughter.

  Belinda explained that Emma had left just about five minutes earlier. “I think she went directly home.”

  “Oh, well, I’m here now. I’ll have a latte, please, Vella.”

  The woman settled her ample body onto a counter stool. One thing that Vella admired about Lillian Jennings was that, while large, she never appeared apologetic about it. She wore print dresses and pantsuits of bright colors.

  As she got the latte, Vella wondered about the state of the woman’s pantyhose. Vella really wanted to find someone else on her side.

  Belinda asked about the magazine the woman had laid on the counter.

  “It is proof,” Lillian said. Holding up the magazine, she thumped the page. “Right here in Southern Living.”

  “Proof of what?”

  “That Oklahoma is indeed in and of the South.” She brandished the magazine in such a way that Vella drew back with the latte.

  “Who said it wasn’t?” asked Vella, as she decided that the woman had settled down enough for her to set the big steaming cup in front of her.

  “Oh, a poor woman who lacks education, bless her heart. But I have the truth right here on the map.”

  Lillian Jennings held the magazine forth, and Belinda and Vella peered at it.

  “Do you see that? Isn’t that Oklahoma?”

  “Yes,” they both said.

  “Now, who can argue with Southern Living Magazine?”

  They all agreed that the magazine was something of a last word.

  Satisfied, Mrs. Jennings lifted the wide latte cup in both hands and sipped delicately.

  Vella took advantage of the lull to say, “Miz Jennings, do you wear pantyhose?”

  She saw Belinda roll her eyes.

  “Why, yes, I do. Ever’day,” Mrs. Jennings answered. “I put them on first
thing in the mornin’. Support hose. Every woman ought to wear them. Helps the veins.”

  “Do you wear panties under your pantyhose?”

  “Well, of course,” said the woman without missing a beat. “I wear panties under them, and in the winter I wear panties over them, too.”

  “Oh,” Vella said.

  After Lillian Jennings had left, Belinda followed close behind, tossing over her shoulder as she reached the door, “Why don’t you write Southern Living Magazine and ask what is the last word in pantyhose wearin’?”

  That evening, Charlene MacCoy was folding clothes out of the dryer when her daughter, Jojo, came to her and shared the big news of a first real date to the dance that was held each Friday night of the summer in the Episcopal Church Fellowship Hall. Mother and daughter discussed what Jojo, who had just graduated out of eighth grade, might want to wear. Pulling a pair of Jojo’s panties out of the dryer and suddenly seeing that they were no bigger than a minute, Charlene decided that Jojo would be wearing both panties and pantyhose with any dresses from there on out.

  Vella entertained Jaydee for supper and later they sat in her glider out on her patio as the cooling dark came. Vella told Jaydee all about the pantyhose discussion. She could hardly believe she felt comfortable doing that, and also that Jaydee took part in the discussion. He never acted bored, and he had a comment for everything.

  He agreed with her that the name “pantyhose” did imply that the panties were built in, and who could think differently? He even offered that he’d had one girlfriend who had not worn panties underneath. He also admitted to having worn pantyhose himself.

  “You did?” Vella said, naturally highly surprised.

  Jaydee explained that he had worn them a few times when riding cutting horses in competition in the freezing cold. “I put them on over my Fruit o’ the Looms, though. They work great under jeans to keep heat in and not be bulky for ridin’. You got to feel that horse under you for performance-horse ridin’, you know. My little brother and a few of the guys do this.”

  “They do?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  Right after that, Jaydee kissed her, and Vella thought she was in gloryland, with a man who could both talk and kiss.

  When Belinda, all showered, perfumed and wearing a lacy red negligee, came out of the bathroom, she found Lyle already in bed, as expected, but unexpectedly, he was hanging up the telephone.

  “That was your mother,” he said, without looking at Belinda, because he was occupied with straightening the phone cord. “She said to tell you to put down another with.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake.” Nevertheless, she made a note on a tablet.

  “What does she mean by that—‘with’?” Lyle asked, finally settled with the cord.

  “Oh, nothin’.”

  Belinda climbed into bed, clicked off the television with the remote and put her attention back where she put it each night at nine o’clock—on enjoying passion with Lyle.

  “Why do you always tell me that?” Lyle said.

  “What?” Her lips were inches from his, his smooth chest firm under her hands. Lyle worked out every day of his life.

  “‘Nothin’.’ I ask you about somethin’, and you say, ‘nothin’.’”

  “Because it is nothin’ that will interest you,” she said, mildly annoyed at the petulant tone slipping into his voice. But then she kissed him and enjoyed the languid rise of sweet desire, and the glorious sensation of being a woman with a man. One thing about Lyle, he was all man. And Belinda was all woman.

  “Well, how do you know it won’t interest me until you tell me?”

  She pulled back and looked at him. “What?”

  He said, “Well, honey, I’d just like us to talk a little more. We don’t ever talk. Married people need to be able to discuss things in order to have a good relationship.”

  She took in his use of the word “relationship.” “You’ve been watchin’ Oprah again, haven’t you?” Aggravated, she f lopped back on the stack of pillows.

  “No…” Then, “It was this psychologist guy on the radio while Giff and I was on patrol. He was talkin’ about couples who have successful marriages. Bein’ able to talk to each other is important for a long and happy marriage.”

  She could not believe it. All the years they had lived together, he had never paid attention to such things. She had known marriage would change the situation. She had just known it.

  “Lyle, honey, I am happy. Aren’t you happy?” She gave him a cajoling bat of her eyes.

  “Well, yeah. Yeah, I am.” He smiled.

  “There you are.” She headed for him to kiss him.

  “Yeah, but I want us to talk, hun-nee.”

  Belinda looked at him. “I am not gonna be happy if we talk right now, o-kay?”

  Lyle sort of pouted, but she whispered in his ear, “We can talk tomorrow, sugar.” Then she nibbled his earlobe.

  “I just want us to have a happy marriage, honey,” he whispered back, getting in one more last word before thankfully paying attention to the relating at hand.

  Belinda could not believe what marriage had done to Lyle. What really had her shaken up, though—so much so that she found she had difficulty paying full attention—was that Lyle was beginning to seem not like her father but like her mother.

  Emma clicked on the bedroom television. The old movie Cat on a Hot Tin Roof showed on the screen in the armoire. Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor. Elizabeth sure had been beautiful. Emma had for years wished to have black hair like Elizabeth Taylor.

  Liz went to taking off her clothes down to her slip, and then reached under and removed her hose. The regular kind, although they didn’t show garters or panties. She might not even have worn them. They hadn’t had pantyhose back then, Emma didn’t think, but if they had, she would bet Liz didn’t wear panties with them. Liz went around the room in her slip. And then she was coming on to Paul, who refused to take up with her.

  Eyes on the screen, Emma sank down on the bed. She had forgotten this part of the movie. There were Elizabeth and Paul sniping at each other, then Elizabeth just begging Paul to make love to her, and him refusing, coldly, angrily, but no matter—just from them talking to each other, there was passion jumping off the screen.

  The whole thing went clear through Emma. She clicked off the television, went to her dressing table, sat and gazed at her self in the mirror.

  John Cole’s footsteps sounded, coming down the hall. He appeared in the room behind her. She saw him look at her—quickly, then away—and begin to remove his shirt, which he tossed onto his dressing chair.

  Taking up the Estée Lauder body lotion, Emma slowly smoothed it on her neck and down over her bare shoulders, where the wide-necked flimsy gown drooped in a sensual manner. Her skin was creamy white. “Good skin,” it was called, a gift from her ancestors.

  “I’m goin’ to take a shower,” John Cole said, as if she might have thought he left home when he went into the bathroom and closed the door.

  She gazed at her image in the mirror again, thinking that she was having no more luck than Elizabeth had when she paraded around in her slip, although by the end of the movie, Elizabeth had won over Paul. Emma couldn’t seem to make headway. She just didn’t know how.

  At least John Cole had finally begun coming to the bed at night. The first night he did this and found her there, he looked like he might just turn around and leave. He did not, thankfully, and they were as pleasant as either could be, saying, “Good night, sleep well,” and then turning out the lights, after which they each lay there breathing in the dark and pretending to go to sleep. Shortly after that, John Cole actually did fall into that little wuffling snore of true sleep. Emma then turned on her side to go to sleep, too, but each successive night that the scenario played out, sleep came harder and harder.

  She would lie there on her back and think that if the hole in her chest got any wider, she would surely die. She would see her life stretching before her, years and years of
a dry desert without passion and conversation. It was like all of her oomph had gotten up and left, and she could not seem to get it back.

  This prospect was so painful that she would cast around in her mind, trying to find out where everything had gone wrong. She would bounce back and forth between herself and John Cole as to who carried the most blame for the situation, and if she lay there long enough, she at last would need to get up to go to the bathroom, at which time she would pass by his side of the bed and wonder what he would do if she whopped him with the pillow.

  Would he even be moved to ask her what was wrong, or would they go on pretending and sort of holding their breaths and trying not to upset anything before the session with the marriage counselor?

  As she sat there, gazing in the mirror, it occurred to Emma that they were pinning a lot of expectation on a woman neither of them had ever seen.

  Just then the telephone rang.

  It was her mother, who had called to tell her of the surefire proof of Oklahoma’s inclusion in the southern states and to vaguely reprimand Emma for not wearing panties under her pantyhose, and further, to say that the fact was known all over town. It seemed that her mother had run into Minnie Oakes, who had given her the news.

  “I thought I had taught you better than that,” her mother said.

  “I do not recall, Mama, that you ever taught me anything about it,” Emma said so sharply as to surprise herself.

  “Well, I thought I did.”

  Unable to think of a positive response, Emma said nothing, and the line hummed for long seconds before her mother returned to the subject of Oklahoma being on the map of the South in Southern Living Magazine. She urged Emma to go look at her copy. Emma managed to refrain from saying that she could not live until she hopped right up and did it.

  As she bade her mother goodbye, John Cole came out of the bathroom. Emma saw him in the mirror. He wore only pajama pants. Her eyes lit on his bare chest, which was smooth and thick-muscled.

  But then he asked, “Who was that?” and she jarred her eyes away.