by Julia Watts
Lily laughed and looked down at Mimi, who started laughing, too.
“You know,” Granny said, “you’re the first woman I’ve ever seen drinking a beer at a McGilly barbecue. I think I just might have me one, too.”
Granny grabbed a beer from the cooler while Lily watched Sheila and Tracee in the pool. They were staying at the shallow end — no doubt so they could avoid wetting their carefully coiffed hair. Of course, given Lily’s recent conversation with the other McGilly wives, she thought the shallow end was an appropriate place for them.
“What’s your baby’s name?” Granny asked.
“Mimi — it’s short for Artemesia.”
Granny looked down at Mimi. “That’s an awful big name for such a little-bitty girl. Benny Jack her daddy?”
“Uh-huh.” Maybe she’d have another beer. The alcohol seemed to make lying easier — and it also eased the awkwardness of social interaction. Before her normal life had been interrupted, Lily had been a reclusive sort, content to spend her days bent over her drawing board, rising only to see to Mimi’s needs, until Charlotte came home from work. Lily had probably talked to more people in the past two weeks than she had in the past two years.
“Benny Jack’s the only one that’s been able to make a baby girl,” Granny said. “His brothers is just too all-boy, I reckon. I always did love me a little girl, though. You care if I hold her?”
“Go right ahead.” Lily helped herself to a second beer.
Granny knelt down and made eye contact with Mimi. “Hey, Mimi, you care to come sit in an old woman’s lap?”
Mimi smiled and raised her arms in the universal “pick-me-up” symbol.
“What’s all this about?” a male voice boomed.
Lily looked up to see a middle-aged man, balding, bearded, and broad-shouldered, with a sizable paunch beneath his plain white T-shirt. She knew immediately that he was “Benny Jack’s” father, Big Ben.
Jeanie ran over to stand at his side. “I thought about calling you at work to tell you, but I thought it’d be more exciting to surprise you at home.” She looked across the pool. “Benny Jack! Come tell Daddy your news!”
Lily considered joining Ben but decided to stay put until she was told otherwise. From her safe spot at the picnic table, she heard Ben say, “Daddy, I’m married.”
When Big Ben could close his jaw enough to speak, he shouted, “Married? To a woman?” Big Ben cackled with joy. “Hot damn! I never thought I’d live to see the day.” He punched his son on the shoulder so hard that Ben lost his footing for a second. “Where is she? Where’s the little lady?”
This, Lily guessed, was her cue. She rose. “Right here,” she said.
Big Ben gallumphed over and placed a hand on each of her shoulders. “I don’t believe I’ve ever been so happy to see a woman in my whole life.”
Lily guessed that Ben had been right. Her nose ring, her dreadlocks, and her Doc Martens were irrelevant; the only thing that mattered to the McGillys was that she was a woman, and Ben had married her. “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. —” She stopped herself. “Big Ben.”
“Gan!” Mimi babbled from Granny McGilly’s lap. She was already trying to say granny.
Big Ben looked down at the baby girl, surprised. “Now who is this?”
“This,” Ben said, “is my daughter.”
Big Ben looked at Mimi, then at Lily, and finally at Ben. His lips spread into an impossibly wide grin. He punched his son on the shoulder again. “You dog,” he laughed. “You ole dog, you!”
The party was dying down. Wayne and Sheila and Johnny and Tracee had taken their kids home to bed. Jeanie and Granny were in the kitchen, washing the dishes after having assured Lily that there was no need for her to help them. “No need for a girl to wash dishes on her wedding night,” Jeanie had said.
“They’ll be plenty of time for that kinda thing later, believe me.”
Lily and Ben sat beside the pool with Big Ben, who was holding the sleeping Mimi in his arms.
“Lily,” he said, “I know I oughta let you put this baby girl to bed, but I swear, I don’t believe I can stand to part with her.”
“She does look awfully comfortable,” Lily said. Big Ben cradled Mimi’s little body in his enormous forearm and hand. In his other hand, he held the last beer from the cooler.
“Daddy,” Ben said, “there’s something I need to talk to you about ... some legal trouble.”
Big Ben raised his wooly eyebrows. “You in trouble with the law, boy?”
“No, Daddy ... nothing like that. It’s about Mimi, actually.”
“Now you got me real confused, Benny Jack.” Big Ben took another swig of beer and looked down at Mimi’s cherubic face.
“It’s about who gets custody of Mimi,” Ben the younger said. “You see ... I’m Mimi’s biological father, but Lily here isn’t Mimi’s real mother.”
Lily was offended by the phrase real mother, but decided it was best not to make an issue out of it… not while they were trying to make their case. “Mimi is the daughter of my best friend Charlotte,” Lily explained. “She was killed in an accident, and she left custody of Mimi to me.”
“Charlotte was in the car with Dez,” Ben added.
Big Ben shook his head. “I sure was sorry when ole Dez got killed. He was queer as a three-dollar bill, but he was funny as hell.” He stared off in the distance for a second. “Now, Benny Jack, Mimi here’s your baby by Charlotte?”
“Yes. Charlotte and I were ... involved.”
Lily could tell she really wanted this plan to work because she managed to keep a straight face during this part of the story.
“Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle!” Big Ben laughed, obviously delighted. “All this time I thought you was a fairy, and here you was, with two women!”
“Go figure,” Ben replied lamely.
“So, anyway,” Lily said, “now Charlotte’s parents want to contest my custody of Mimi — they don’t think I should be allowed to raise her.”
Big Ben drained his can of beer and crushed it. “Now is that on account them thinking there was somethin’ between you and Charlotte?” His steel-gray eyes were focused on Lily.
“Well, uh . . . there was something between Charlotte and me,” Lily said, as Ben shot her a warning glance. “But that was before I met Benny Jack here.”
“Hmm.” Big Ben scratched his beard thoughtfully. “Well, I don’t even pretend to understand what it is you young people do today, but what I want to know is this: The two of y’all has a real marriage, right? You’re devoted to each other, with no hanky-panky on the side?”
“We are,” Ben and Lily said in unison.
“And y’all wanna make a real family for this little girl?”
“Yes.”
“All right, then. First thing in the mornin’, I’ll get ole Buzz Dobson on the phone ... he’s our family lawyer. And Lily, you just tell Charlotte’s parents to come on down to the Faulkner County Courthouse, and we’ll have a big can o’ whupass waitin’ for ’em.”
Lily and Ben lay in their marital bed, not consummating a thing. “You think you’re gonna be able to do this?” Ben asked.
“Do what?” Lily gasped. She was a little nervous about his question, given where they were.
“Fake this whole marriage act for as long as it takes?”
“I think so. It’s awfully fucking weird, though. This whole day has reminded me of when I was experimenting with hallucinogens in college.”
“I know what you mean — not about the drugs, but about the weirdness. Tomorrow we’ll see if we can rent an apartment ... that way we’ll be out from under my parents’ watchful eyes. Plus, we won’t be stuck in the same bed.”
“That’d be cool. This isn’t so bad, though. When I was little I used to sleep in the same bed with my cousins. It’s kinda like that.” She listened to her stomach rumble. “One thing we’re definitely gonna have to do tomorrow is find some food I can eat. The only thing I could eat at the barbecue wa
s that fruit salad with the little marshmallows in it.”
“Yeah, my folks aren’t much on vegetarian cuisine.”
“No shit. Even the potato salad had bacon in it.” They lay in awkward silence for a few minutes until finally Lily said, “Good night, husband.”
“Good night, wife.”
Lily closed her eyes and slept the sleep of exhaustion.
CHAPTER 6
Mimi had gone to the park with Dez. Finally, Lily and Charlotte could have some time alone.
Since Mimi had come onto the scene, time alone had become Charlotte and Lily’s euphemism for the lovemaking that occurred all too infrequently between them. Their nighttime attempts at intimacy were often interrupted by Mimi howling for formula or climbing out of her crib to scratch pathetically at their bedroom door. As a result of this syndrome of caught-us-interruptus, Dez had agreed to take Mimi out for a couple of hours every two weeks so the women could enjoy some uninterrupted time alone.
Although sex had become less frequent since Mimi’s arrival, the rule seemed to be quality over quantity. Lily and Charlotte craved their time alone — ached for those couple of hours when they could be free of the responsibilities of mommyhood and lose themselves in each other.
Lily was aware of Charlotte behind her as they walked upstairs to the bedroom. Her breath caught in anticipation of what they were about to do. She let Charlotte follow her into the bedroom, taking pleasure in the fact that there was no need to close the door behind them.
Lily lay on the bed, barefoot in the little black dress she knew Charlotte liked, and watched Charlotte take off her watch and rings and set them on the bureau. Charlotte looked at Lily sprawled on the bed and smiled.
“C’mere,” Lily coaxed, scooting over to make room. “Just a second. I want to look at you first. “ Lily laughed. “You look at me all the time.”
But I never tire of it.”
Lily lay on the bed, feeling Charlotte’s gaze burn through her. In everyday life, Lily felt she was passably attractive in a sloppy, bohemian kind of way, but she certainly wasn’t the kind of person who turned heads — male or female.
In the world of their bedroom, though, Charlotte made Lily feel like a high-femme fantasy figure.
In Charlotte’s eyes, in Charlotte’s hands, she was Rita Hayworth ... Marilyn Monroe.
When Charlotte finally joined Lily on the bed, their lips met in a fierce, bruising kiss. Lily wrapped her arms and legs around her lover, who pressed down on her, as each of them tried to get as close to the other as possible.
Charlotte pulled down the shoulder strap of Lily’s black dress and kissed her from shoulder to collarbone to breast. And when Charlotte’s hand slipped between Lily’s legs, Lily was ready for her — so ready that as Charlotte entered her, a sound escaped her mouth, the sound a woman can only make at the height of passion — a breathy, desperate...
SNORT!
Snort? Lily awoke from her dream to find that her arm was wrapped around not the curvy form of Charlotte, but the flat, hairy chest of Benny Jack McGilly, who was snoring with the volume of a sea lion with bronchitis.
Disoriented and still not quite removed from her dream state, Lily leaped out of bed. Where the hell was she, and what in the name of Sappho was she doing in bed with a man?
SNORT! Ben’s snoring shook the bed.
A man with obvious respiratory problems, no less? She backed away from the bed, horrified, only to feel something sharp stick her shoulder blade. She wheeled around to see the black, beady eyes of the stuffed turkey staring at her. She couldn’t help it. She screamed.
Ben stopped in mid-snort, sat upright, and flipped on the lamp. “What the — ?”
The peck on the shoulder had woken Lily up. “Um... I’m sorry. I was dreaming ... about Charlotte, and then your snoring woke me up, and I don’t know... In my dream it was like everything was so normal, and then when I woke up everything was just ... weird, y’know?”
“Well, that’s no excuse for hysteria when some people are trying to sleep. And besides, I do not snore.”
A knock on the door froze Lily and Ben stiff. “Hey,” Big Ben’s voice called. “Everything okay in there? We heard screaming.”
“Everything’s fine, Daddy,” Ben said testily. “Go back to bed.”
“Oh,” Big Ben said. “Oh. Sorry to, uh, interrupt.” Ben’s face turned the same shade of red as the preserved turkey’s wattle.
“What?” Lily teased. “You’re embarrassed that your father thinks you were driving me to screaming heights of ecstasy?”
Ben flipped the light off. “Let’s go back to sleep, okay?” He rolled over, and soon the snoring resumed.
Lily crawled back into bed. She hated Ben for waking her up, because she knew that dreams were the only place she’d ever feel Charlotte’s touch again. Lily’s six years with Charlotte had been a blur of bliss, and now in two short weeks, Lily’s life had altered until it was no longer recognizable.
She lay awake, crying softly to herself and praying that Mimi would be safe, until beams of sunlight shot through the bedroom window.
Lily slept just long enough to awake feeling extra groggy. The only thing that’ll make you feel worse than not sleeping at all is sleeping just a couple of hours, she thought as she padded stiffly down the hall to check on Mimi. Mimi was in her crib, sleeping with a soundness that Lily envied. She walked down the hall to one of the McGillys’ numerous bathrooms.
As she emerged from the shower, she heard Mimi crying. She pulled her clothes on over her damp skin and ran down the hall. By the time she arrived, Mimi was in the throes of a full-blown hysterical fit.
“It’s okay, baby. Mama’s here.” She lifted Mimi out of the crib and hugged her. “You don’t like waking up in a strange place any more than your mama does, do you?” She laid her down on one of the bunk beds. “Let’s get you out of this pee-pee diaper and see if we can scare you up some breakfast.”
Lily carried Mimi downstairs and followed the smell of coffee into the kitchen. “Good morning, Lily!” Jeanie said brightly, dropping two slices of bread into the toaster. “How many eggs can I fix you?
Three? Four?”
Eggs first thing in the morning weren’t Lily’s favorite thing. Her usual breakfast was a piece of fruit washed down with copious amounts of coffee. “One egg is plenty.”
Jeanie looked her up and down. “I guess it would be, wouldn’t it? You’re a tiny little thing. I’m used to feeding boys, and it’s a sight how much they eat. When all three of my boys was home, we used to go through six dozen eggs a week.” She handed Mimi a sippy cup of milk, Lily a mug of coffee.
“Speaking of my boys, I bet that sorry husband of yours ain’t turned over in the bed yet.”
“He was still pretty out of it when I got up.” She sipped from the mug. “Good coffee.”
“He always was slow to wake. I used to pour ice water on him to get him outta bed for school.” Jeanie set a plate of scrambled eggs and toast in front of Lily. “Hmm,” Jeanie said, “I reckon I should just go on and wake him up. I can’t just wait around all day to cook his breakfast.”
Lily nibbled toast and spooned egg into Mimi’s open, baby-bird mouth while Jeanie hollered up the stairs, “Benny Jack! You better get on up! It’s going on nine o’clock!”
Lily smiled. Back in Atlanta, Ben rarely rose before eleven.
From upstairs Lily heard Ben yell back a response that sounded like, “oh, for god’s sake, Mother.” But in two minutes, he was in the kitchen, his face shadowed with stubble and his hair standing on end as if he were a cartoon character who had stuck his finger in a light socket.
“Welcome to married life, Lily,” Jeanie said, dropping two more pieces of bread in the toaster.
“You might go to bed with a good-looking man, but when he wakes up in the morning, he’s gonna look like holy hell.”
Lily laughed, while Ben muttered an incantation against the female sex and helped himself to some coffee.
“I’m just teasing you, Benny Jack. You want three eggs or four?”
“Mother, I’ve told you a thousand times that I don’t eat eggs anymore. I know the doctors in Versailles haven’t heard of cholesterol yet, but —”
Jeanie rolled her eyes. “I know all about cholesterol, Benny Jack. I just thought you might want a real breakfast this mornin’ since it’s a special occasion. I mean, if a man don’t wake up after his wedding night with a good appetite, then there’s somethin’ bad wrong —”
“Two,” Ben mumbled.
“What was that, honey?”
