For over twenty years I had not looked behind the old wall of rage. I did not want to look now.
“No, no it doesn’t make me feel better. Stop.” She held up her hand. “None of this is coming out right, though I practiced and practiced.”
“Carolee, let’s stop this now. You and BJ found solace in missing me. I’m flattered. Okay . . . okay . . .”
“Please hear me. After you came in BJ’s house and . . . after that . . . it was as if we had entered a dark cave we could not find our way out of. You had seen us and both of us knew, although we never discussed it, we knew nothing could ever be the same, that there would be no forgiveness. I believe that if you had not come in, if you hadn’t found us, that we would have stopped there . . . before . . . before . . . we did. But, after you saw us . . .”
“Spare me the details, please.” I rubbed my eyes.
“I got pregnant that day. Pregnant . . . and the cave door disappeared behind an immovable boulder.”
I sat back, stunned. “Pregnant?”
“No one knew. Mom and Daddy moved and took me with them. BJ came with us and we had a quiet little wedding ceremony. BJ went off to college in south Georgia to play football and I went with him. Oh Carolee, it was horrible. We lived in the married students’ dorm and it was cramped and smelled like old beer and there were crying babies all the time, day and night. BJ was taking classes, playing ball. He could not figure out why I was depressed. Wasn’t college just the greatest thing in the world? He wasn’t cruel or . . . belittling. He just didn’t get it. Then . . . then baby Billy was born six weeks too early and did not live three days . . .” She began to weep and the sound of it filled my chest with her sorrow, crowding out any anger still tightly held in my heart.
“Oh dear God, Carolee, you lost the baby?”
She nodded. “BJ left me two weeks later. It wasn’t a surprise, Sara-Beth. How could it have been? There was no reason, anymore, to stay with me. He never loved me, and I never loved him. The only common ground we had ever had was loving you—and the baby, who in some way, also came from loving you.”
Now I was crying, too. The lost years of miscalculated rage washed over me in a flood of regret. “What did you do?”
“I moved back home with my parents. I lost the baby, I lost you, I lost BJ. There were a few times when I could not move, get up out of the chair to decide what to eat . . . days I do not want to remember. But, a few years later, I met Austin. It was real love. Real. We’d been married for nineteen years when he passed last summer.”
“Carolee. I’m sorry.” And I was. “I thought . . . it doesn’t matter what I thought.”
“Yes, it does.”
“All these years . . . all of them, I thought that you and BJ were together . . . behind my back . . . all through high school. That you were happy when I went to college and left you alone together. That you wanted to get married . . . actually that you were still married. I have carried that story with me.”
“I should have called you when we broke up . . . I was too embarrassed . . . humiliated.”
“Embarrassed. You were embarrassed? I would have listened. I would have understood. I would have come.”
“BJ and I didn’t want anyone in Mossy Creek to know what happened to us. Or our baby. Oh, Carolee, the baby is buried in a small plot at a church down in south Georgia. His little gravesite is no bigger than this table . . .”
“I would have come . . .” I knew I was repeating myself but I could find no other comfort for Carolee in this new and alien world in which I found us; a world in which my rock-solid assumptions had melted.
She took my hand. “I never forgot you, Sara-Beth. I can’t tell you how many empty times I have picked up the phone to call you . . . beg you to talk to me . . . but I knew I was being punished . . . for what I did to you. I had no right to turn to you for comfort.” She whispered now. “Did you, ever, once, want to call me?”
“Yes, but I was too . . . proud.”
She leaned back in her chair. “A deadly cocktail of pride and pain has kept us from this . . . from us.” A silence as long and wide as the years that separated us spread across the table. Then we spoke simultaneously.
“I figured you didn’t want me to call . . .”
“I thought you were happily married to BJ and didn’t want me to call . . .”
“You too?”
“You too?”
And there it was. The friendship I used to have, the You too? we missed and now held as a precious gift, again.
Our words crossed each other over the table, over the years, over the betrayal I had miscalculated. “Sara-Beth, can you forgive me?”
I took her hands. “Of course. Can you forgive me for not being there . . . for not . . . wanting to listen? I missed you, Carolee. No one knows how to describe things, explain life, as you do. I’ve missed you. Us. I can’t believe what you’ve been through, how I wasn’t there for you. I’ll make it up to you. I will.”
We began to speak in excited torrents, sharing our lives. She talked of meeting Austin, of regret and love and her children and always knowing exactly how old baby Billy would be, to the day. We breached a great divide of time and space and absolution at a small pub table in the town it all started and now ended.
“How long are you staying, Carolee? I want you to meet James and the kids.”
“Well, my great aunt left her little house on the square to her only sane, living relative: Mother . . . who said I should come here and decide for myself what to do with it.”
“Well, what are you going to do with it? It is a great house.”
“Well, isn’t Mossy Creek still a wonderful place to raise kids?”
“Yes, oh yes. Especially when your best friend has kids the same age.”
“Yes, my best friend.”
We paid Michael hurriedly and rushed outside in the bright summer sun, hugging and holding hands.
“Look at that cute little girl in the pink dress.” I pointed at a toddler crying in earnest, pulling at her mother’s hem, pink from her cheeks to her patent leather shoes.
“She looks like she’s been sprinkled with the dust of a just-rising pink moon.” There she was, describing the feeling again.
My heart squeezed and expanded, filled and emptied. Carolee and I walked down a Mossy Creek sidewalk, as flawed but as strong as our own new friendship. I drew comfort from the imperfect and unplanned unevenness of the Mossy Creek concrete. Everything felt lighter, more solid and weightless all at the same time. Nothing I could explain, nothing I would ever try to form into words to my family. Carolee would know how to explain this, but I would discover it trivial and insignificant in my own words. Regardless, all was different.
As I drove Carolee to my house, I suddenly threw my head back and laughed. Without even asking why, Carolee began to laugh along with me.
“You, too,” she said.
Mossy Creek Gazette
Volume III, No. 5 * Mossy Creek, Georgia
The Bell Ringer
Okay, Nobody’s Perfect
by Katie Bell
The notice in last week’s paper regarding the “Gospel Singing on the Square” had a typo. It read: “This evening at 7 p.m. the music minister of Mossy Creek First Methodist will lead an old fashioned gospel music sing-along in the park. Bring a blanket and come prepared to sin.”
No, we did not intend to leave off the “g.”
Those readers who pointed out the error to the Gazette may continue to sing in public and, as for the other word, well, use your own judgment.
The same Weekend Events column advised Creekite women “not to forget your husbands when you’re gathering up items to donate to the Jaycees’ yard sale.”
Yours truly composed the column and can only plead for forgiveness. I’m developing seve
ral major stories to share with you, dear readers, before summer’s end, and my brain is fried. I apologize to all the husbands and anyone who wanted to sing but not sin.
In other news: Michael Conners has announced this week’s Creekite Who Deserves His Own Drink Named After Him at the Pub. After the recent small hubbub involving two of our town’s more colorful young women, their husbands asked Michael to name the peach margaritas a “What Do We Do Now?” The honorees, Emma and Aurrie, are only mildly amused.
Chapter Nine
EMMA and AURRIE
“The road to a friend’s house is never long.”
—Danish proverb
THE CRICKETS SANG and the summer moon glowed as I sat on my front porch in Grandma Jackie’s squeaky, white-washed rocking chair. Our side street was quiet, too quiet, just like the rest of Mossy Creek that night. My old cat, Scarlet, lay sprawled out before me, licking her paws as if all was right with the world. A cool chill crept up my spine. The night seemed peaceful. It seemed calm. But everything was not okay. My son, Keith, and his best friend, Mack, had departed shortly after dinner to hunt rocks for their geology collection. Now it was past ten, darker than the crawl space under the house, and they still hadn’t returned. I wanted to throw up. My husband Rick had left to look for them an hour earlier, but as of yet, no word.
The table phone I’d dragged outside rang loudly from its perch on my lap. I longed for the day when cell phones worked reliably inside Mossy Creek’s mountainous borders. It always amused visitors that we often had to depend on old-fashioned technology.
I grabbed the phone off its cradle. It had been over five minutes since Aurrie’s last call. That was a record for the evening. “Hey, hon,” I said weakly.
“I feel physically sick. I do. I’m gonna spank Mack’s fanny when he gets home,” Aurrie declared, knowing she’d never raise a hand to her only son. “I taught Mack better than this. Checking in is a must. I always say . . .”
“Mama needs to know,” I completed her sentence. Aurrie DuPree had been my best friend since the second grade at Mossy Creek Elementary. There wasn’t a thought in her head that I couldn’t read, and vice versa.
I’ll never forget the day she strutted into Mrs. Willard’s classroom. Already towering at five-foot-four, she was the epitome of an eight-year-old trendsetter. She wore a black and white, knee-length polka dot jumper with knee socks and saddle oxfords. Her silky blonde hair was held up by matching polka dot ribbon. Aurrie DuPree was cool with a capital “C.” And just as important, she was carrying a Donny Osmond lunch box. To say he was my idol was the understatement of the year. I was in awe of Aurrie and made it my mission to find out everything about her. I succeeded, too. Even in second grade I knew what I wanted and went after it. By the end of the week, Aurrie and me were best buddies.
“I’m freakin’ here,” Aurrie bellowed now, obviously on the verge of tears. “This sitting by the phone is torture. Where are they? Have you heard from Rick, yet? Burke should have called me by now.”
“Haven’t heard a word. Come on over. I think it’s time to call Chief Royden.”
We hung up and I dialed the police station. Sandy Crane answered, asked a slew of questions and said she would send the chief out to find the boys immediately. She also said she’d call me back as soon as she got any news.
Aurrie came jogging down the sidewalk wearing shorts and a knee-length t-shirt, her long, sandy blonde hair in a ponytail. She raced up the three steps that led to my porch. I stood, and we embraced. I could feel her pulse racing, and by the way she squeezed the air out of my lungs, I knew she was just as terrified as I was, but I always felt like anything was possible when Aurrie was around.
She gave my soul hope.
A few minutes later, headlights approached the house, and Amos Royden’s Jeep came into view. Aurrie gazed at me with mascara streaks covering her cheeks. “What are we supposed to do now?” she cried.
We’d been asking each other that question for years.
THE SUMMER OF OUR pregnancies had been hotter than the chicken wings at Mama’s All You Can Eat Café.
It wasn’t hard to believe Aurrie and I had attended West Georgia College together, Aurrie majoring in fashion design and I in journalism. Everyone in Mossy Creek was surprised, however, when both us married handsome city guys and then hauled them back to our good ol’ hometown.
My husband, Rick, headed up the finance department at Mossy Creek Savings and Loan. And Aurrie’s husband, Burke, purchased a small dairy farm up near the Yonder community, though he and Aurrie kept a house in town. It has always been acceptable to bring an Atlanta boy to Mossy Creek, just as long as no part of his family was from Bigelow or related to a Bigelowan. We had done okay.
I don’t think anyone ever really expected us to return, we were just so darn sure of our success. Together Aurrie and me had followed our hearts, spoken our minds and ended up just where we started. And that was fine by us.
We strolled into an unsuspecting downtown Mossy Creek. We had spent the entire morning curling and styling each other’s hair. Aurrie’s sandy blonde hair hung long, curling at the ends. I had also woven braids on each side of her face. She had maneuvered my shoulder-length auburn hair into a chic spout on top of my head, with a few loose tendrils flowing around my chin. The hour-long make-up session had produced faces that would make Las Vegas showgirls look bland. Our attire was the utmost in comfort: polyester maternity shorts, flowing tops and two-dollar flip-flops completed the ensemble. We were stylin’.
To me, Aurrie looked exotic. Her five-eleven frame was lean and strong. The little cantaloupe under her small boobs was simply adorable. Now I was a different story altogether. At five feet three inches, my stomach was the size of a full-court basketball and my butt was bigger than the barn down at Hamilton’s farm. I was due first, but that didn’t alleviate my insecurity. However, now with Aurrie by my side, the fabulous hair-do and stunning make up, I felt better.
It really wasn’t amazing that Aurrie and I had remained best friends through so many years. We did have a lot in common. Both of us had mouths on us. The term “Mouth of the South” had been used to describe each of us several times. If someone was not facing reality or there was a bully in need of a tongue lashing, one of us would be the first to do it. And believe you me, we were not afraid of anything or anyone. Sugar coating the facts was not our style either. When we were at Bigelow County High we had taken on the responsibility of matchmakers, gossip investigators, and fashion police. As young married women, we continued to strut our stuff.
I placed a hand over my heavily mascaraed eyes.
“The town folk may not be able to handle this.” We took a left onto North Bigelow.
The right side of Aurrie’s upper lip inched upward. I always called it her Elvis look. “Handle what?” she asked.
“Two big ol’ pregnant women strutting through town on their way to Beechum’s Bakery just after lunch time on a Tuesday.”
“Hogwash, Emma. We look good. We have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. You’re on leave from the Mossy Creek Gazette and I’m taking a break from buying for Hamilton’s Department Store. We’re sort of on vacation and hey, we’ve always been known as women who know how to make the best of things. Besides we’re single-handedly upping the population of Mossy Creek by two.” Suddenly she leaned close and whispered, “Look to your left.”
I could see Ida Hamilton Walker laughing at us from inside her office window at town hall. She gave us a mayorly wave. My chin rose, and I waved back. I glanced at Aurrie and her hand was up as well. It was rather comical. Us carrying ourselves like beauty queens in a parade. We had the wave down: flat handed, side-to-side. All we needed were lace gloves and a fancy automobile and you’d have thought we were really important.
Sauntering past Mossy Creek Pharmacy, I waved at the druggist, who was laughing at us, too. He held u
p a soda glass but we shook our heads. “I don’t want ice cream,” I sighed. “I want a beer. It’s been months.”
Aurrie nodded. “After we have these babies I’m going to make us the biggest pitcher of frozen peach margaritas you’ve ever seen. And none of that store-bought fruit, either. I’m going to use the finest peaches in Mossy Creek. That’s a promise.”
We crossed West Mossy Creek and all the women in Goldilocks Hair Salon waved at us, laughing. My legs were tiring, and a just-off-of-a-roller-coaster feeling took hold of my stomach. “Aurrie, I need to sit.”
“Just a minute, Emma. Stick your chest out. Everyone’s watching.” She was obviously concentrating on the perfect, parade-worthy appearance.
The moment we cleared the gawkers at Goldilocks, she helped me to a small bench outside of Dan McNeil’s Fix-It Shop. I plopped down, my belly pushing into what felt like my throat.
“I’m so big,” I mustered, my bottom lip beginning to quiver. “I shouldn’t be out here. I look ridiculous.” Tears began to slide from my eyes. I sobbed loudly, suddenly so embarrassed by my behavior. Aurrie grabbed my chin.
“Great balls of fire. Why are you talkin’ this way? You are the most beautiful woman in all of Mossy Creek. Your baby is going to be the next full-fledged citizen. You are glowing, and that’s a fact. Your hair is shinier than ever, your nails are perfection and you still have that famous sway to your hips. Marilyn Monroe would be jealous.” She took a tissue out of her purse and began wiping my cheeks. “The make-up is a little ruined. But I promise you, as God is my witness, you are lovelier than daisies blooming in the springtime. And what you’re doing—what we’re doing is just as important or more important than the mundane activities everybody else is doing. You are one hot chick. Now I want to see a smile.”
I lifted my arms. “I’m hot,” I declared, as I moved my elbows up and down like a chicken in an attempt to air out my soaked armpits. “Maybe it’s just hormones. I think I need . . .”
Summer in Mossy Creek Page 17
