She made two lemon icebox pies using cans of frozen lemonade and one prune cake using jars of baby food. She baked a ham one day, cooked smothered chicken and barbecue pork chops the next, and country fried steak the day after. There were twice-baked potatoes, collards, butter beans, green bean casserole and creamed corn.
When the three of them sat down to eat, his mother ate heartily. “Nerves,” she explained when it became clear she had out-eaten both Truely and his daddy.
Truely’s mother’s cooking binges triggered his daddy’s loss of appetite. He tried to eat enough to please her. Truely could see that. But his daddy was never a man of excesses. Excess of any kind made him uncomfortable. Besides his daddy had long suffered stomach trouble. He had rarely consulted a doctor about it, but he self-medicated with buttermilk, milk of magnesia tablets, and bottles of Pepto-Bismol. He didn’t complain much either.
Nonetheless his mother took his daddy’s refusal to eat as a personal insult, some sort of negative comment on her deficient coping technique. She began to prod him, to put servings of food on his plate which he had no hope of eating. She did the same to Truely. It was like a test. Usually Truely passed the test, but his daddy rarely did. “Stop shoving food at me, Linda,” he snapped at her. “I’m not a child.”
This time the scene ended with his mother storming to the bedroom close to tears, leaving Truely and his daddy to clean the kitchen and put the leftover food away, which they did without discussing the matter much. “She blames herself,” his daddy said, “for whatever Courtney does.”
“I don’t get that,” Truely said.
“She’s a mother,” his daddy said listlessly. “They see things different.”
His daddy set aside some of the leftover food, wrapped it in aluminum foil, placed it in a large paper sack, and walked the quarter mile over to Fontaine Burroughs’ house and gave it to his mother, who he knew would be happy to get it. When he got back home that evening — Truely heard the screen door slam and the coffeepot rattle — his daddy poured himself a cup of lukewarm coffee and sat alone out on the back steps for a long time.
The next day Truely’s mother gave his daddy and him her modified version of the silent treatment. This had always been one of Courtney’s specialties too. Truely wasn’t sure whether she’d learned it from his mother or been the one to teach it to her. His sister and his mother were as different as night and day, but in some ways they were the same. Courtney had his mother’s Irish good looks — pale skin, dark red hair, green eyes — although his mother was on the short side and Courtney was tall and lean like her daddy. Almost as long as Truely could remember, Courtney had pretty much been a head turner — in spite of her self-consciousness. Maybe his mother had turned heads too when she was younger. His daddy said that when he met her she was the prettiest girl he’d ever seen. Now her hair had faded and thinned. She was slightly plump, her body soft as a marshmallow. His mother spent less and less time studying herself in the mirror — sometimes haphazardly powdering her face in the car en route to her destination, not even bothering to consult the rearview mirror.
Truely never understood why Courtney couldn’t do like most every other free-spirited college girl at the time and simply fail to mention the specific details of her living arrangements. It was a dumb move on her part — the confession, and maybe the cohabitation too — and he told her so. “So, let me get this straight, Court. You feel compelled to tell Mother and Daddy the truth when you decide to move in with a guy almost twice your age that they consider a total stranger?”
“This is too big to lie about, True. Don’t you see?” She spoke as if he were the dense one. “This is not some trivial detail. This is my actual life.”
He wasn’t sure whether this was something he’d learned from watching Courtney’s messy techniques or not, but Truely personally made it a point to let his parents know as little as possible about the details of his own life. They seemed to really appreciate it too.
IT TOOK HIS PARENTS a while to accept the fact of Courtney’s lost innocence. Their suffering only began to subside because even a fool could tell how crazy happy Courtney was with Hastings. She sometimes forced Hastings onto the phone to say hello to her parents or to Truely. It was awkward for everybody, but Hastings did it. Whenever there was something Hastings could do to make Courtney happy, it was done — pronto, no questions asked. Truely thought Hastings’ love for Courtney was embarrassing in its intensity and magnitude. It was certainly nothing Truely ever aspired to, the humiliating depths of excess. Losing one’s dignity to love.
TRUELY DIDN’T KNOW the exact moment that Courtney found out Hastings was rich. He remembered clearly the way she had warned him before she brought Hastings home to Mississippi the first time. “Hastings is begging to come to Mississippi,” she’d said. “He really wants to meet you all.”
“Good,” Truely said.
“You think so, True? Really?”
“Why not?”
“Maybe it’s too soon.”
“The sooner the better,” Truely said. “Bring him on. What? You afraid we’ll scare him off or something?”
“Look, True, I need to tell you something about Hastings. It’s important for you to know before you meet him.”
“Shoot,” Truely said.
“You can’t hold it against him, Truely. Promise me.”
Truely scanned the possibilities. Maybe the guy was black. She’d had a crush on a black boy when she was in high school — it had been a poorly kept secret too. He remembered the day his daddy had gotten wind of it. Maybe this guy was Asian. Or Moslem. Was he blind? Wheelchair bound? Did he have a criminal record? Or was he a crazy artist — Lord knows, Courtney liked that type. Maybe he was going through a messy divorce. Or worse, was still married.
“He’s rich.”
“Rich? What do you mean rich?”
“He has money, T. Lots of it.”
“What kind of money?”
“Family money,” she said.
“He inherited it?”
“Sort of. I mean, yes. But he works hard to make his own money too. He owns his own company. I told you that, didn’t I? He’s not just sitting around counting his daddy’s money or anything.”
“Okay,” Truely said.
“You won’t hold it against him, right?”
“Maybe just a twinge of envy. Is that allowed?”
“Don’t tell Mother and Daddy. They don’t need to know until the time is right.”
“All right,” he agreed.
“Just act like he’s a normal person, True. Because he is — basically.”
“Got it.”
“Why am I being so apologetic?”
“You tell me.”
“I just want you all to give him a chance.”
“How about you give us country bumpkins the benefit of the doubt, Court.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry, True. You’re right.”
“One more thing.”
“What?”
“Have you explained to him that we have our own thing going on down here in Hinds County? Family not-money.”
“See?” she said. “That’s exactly what I mean.”
HASTINGS’ FIRST VISIT to Hinds County was not a total success. He and Courtney had been living together for months by then, their romance in full bloom. Nonetheless, Truely’s parents would not allow Courtney and Hastings to stay together unmarried under their roof. That was understood. It went without saying. So Hastings rented himself a hotel room at the best hotel in downtown Jackson.
“I told him I could fix up the sofa in the living room,” Truely’s mother said. “But nooooo. Mr. California has to check into the most expensive hotel in Jackson.”
“His name is Hastings, Mama.”
“Who is he trying to impress?”
Courtney and Hastings drove out to the Noonan place for supper the first night. Their high hopes were painfully apparent. Truely’s mother’s nervousness caused her to talk too much. His da
ddy’s resentment made him silent.
It was Truely who finally invited Hastings outside to walk the property — a ritual his daddy usually conducted when company came. His daddy took pride in pointing out the vegetable garden, the fruit trees, the catfish pond where they’d spent endless hours watching corks bob, the old shed turned woodworking shop, the woodpile ready for winter, the antique John Deere tractor he had spent a couple of decades working on, the pen where he once kept chickens, the bird feeders he built himself, the deer lick at the edge of the pond, the stream that ran along the property boundary, the spot where he might like to build a smokehouse someday to cure his own venison there. Truely could give the tour as well as his daddy did but was offering it mostly to diffuse the tensions in the house.
Hastings was walking beside Truely, trying to listen to his explanation of the surrounding terrain. “I get the feeling your father would like to take me behind that woodshed over there and beat the hell out of me with a slat of that timber.”
“Probably would,” Truely said.
“Courtney told me they equate California with hell,” he said.
Truely tried to laugh. “Pretty much.”
“So what does that make me — Satan?”
“Pretty much.”
YOU DIDN’T HAVE to be Sherlock Holmes to know that nights after she thought the family was asleep Courtney snuck out of her girlhood room, started her mother’s old station wagon and drove to Jackson, where she stayed with Hastings until the early morning hours, when everybody in the house could hear her pull up into the side yard in the dark, get out of the car and sneak back into the house before daybreak.
“You’re acting like a jerk,” Truely told her as she crept in the second morning. “Two days of abstinence is going to kill you? Is that right?”
“My God, True, you think this is about sex?”
“Isn’t it?”
“It’s about seeing the world differently from the way they see it — living my life differently from the way they live theirs. Don’t you ever get tired of marching to the beat of Mother and Daddy’s drummer, True?”
“Dammit, Court, this is their house. When in Rome. Would that kill you?”
“The good news is I’ll be gone tomorrow, True. But you know what? I hope I’m never as passive as you are.”
“God forbid,” he said. “I hope I’m never such a selfish pain in the ass.”
HASTINGS CAME by the house the next afternoon in his rental car to pick up Courtney for the airport. Truely had a few minutes alone with Hastings as he loaded Courtney’s luggage in the trunk of the car. Hastings seemed miserable.
“Courtney is pretty upset.”
“You can be sure if Courtney is upset, everybody is upset.”
“None of this is her fault,” Hastings said. “I was the one who wanted to come down here and meet her family. She tried to talk me out of it.”
“Let me ask you something, Hastings.” Truely folded his arms and leaned against the rental car. “You planning to marry my sister?”
“We talk about it. When the time is right.”
“I’m not telling you how to live your life or anything,” Truely said. “But I’d hold off on coming back down here until you put a ring on my sister’s finger, man.”
“That’s the way it is?”
“My parents just want what they believe is right for Courtney.”
“I understand.”
Truely smiled. “One more thing.”
“What?”
“How invested are you in that ponytail?”
“The ponytail stays,” Hastings said.
“Right,” Truely said. “Just asking.”
Three
FOR HIS SEVENTEENTH BIRTHDAY Courtney and Hastings sent Truely a plane ticket to fly out to visit them. It was far beyond anything he’d thought to wish for. His parents briefly discussed insisting that he send it back — claiming it was excessive. But Truely talked them out of that—with the long-distance assistance of Courtney. First they’d learned that Hastings had plenty of money. Now they learned that he wasn’t the least bit stingy. Knowing the second thing made it much easier to tolerate the first thing.
Before meeting Hastings neither Truely nor Courtney had ever known anything at all about money or the people who had it. Like most Mississippi kids they had dreamed dreams that had little or no significant financial dimensions to them. They thought of money the same as they did weather — necessary in some form, unpredictable, volatile enough to wipe you off the map of the world at any given time. It would have been fair to say Truely and Courtney had little interest in money, people with it, or ways to get it. Truely thought that might be what Hastings had found so irresistible about his sister. She liked him in spite of his family money. She forgave him his wealth.
Truely’s trip to California was the first time he had ever flown — and he’d been plenty scared. He’d never prayed that much at one sitting before. By the time he landed the third time that day — Jackson to Atlanta, Atlanta to Chicago, Chicago to San Francisco — and saw Courtney and Hastings waving to him at the gate, he felt like a veteran traveler — and closer to God too, his prayers answered. He was visibly relieved to have arrived mostly intact.
They all squeezed into Hastings’ small sports car with the top down and drove headfirst into the luminous city. Truely thought about Star Wars—the way he had felt the first time he saw the movie and had actually considered the possibility that there might be other worlds out there somewhere, incredible places waiting to be discovered by the best and boldest. San Francisco gave him the Star Wars feeling.
“What do you think, True?” Courtney watched him scan the horizon, crouched down in the tiny back space of the speeding car.
“We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto,” he said.
By the time they got to Hastings’ apartment Truely felt he had traveled beyond the known galaxy. Hastings’ apartment was on the eighteenth floor and had a view of the bay, which he would not see fully until the following morning. But what Truely liked even more were the endless city lights in all directions sparkling like a million fireflies as far as he could see.
The actual apartment was the nicest place Truely had ever been. It was small, even by Mississippi standards. It was modern too, with sleek furniture, glass tables and what his mother would have referred to as “genuine oriental rugs.” There were abstract paintings on the walls. Large canvases. Two he recognized as Courtney’s work. There were fresh flowers, of course. Hadn’t their mother taught them that you always welcomed visitors with a vase of fresh cut flowers — or in the winter months in Mississippi, holly berries, nandina or a stem of magnolia leaves? Both tiny bedrooms in the apartment had beds low to the floor on wooden platforms. Truely had never slept low before — unless he was camping someplace out in the woods. In Hinds County people liked their beds high off the floor so you had to climb up into the bed and could store Lord knows what underneath it. Here everything was simple and sparse. Truely might have said the rooms were mostly empty. Courtney called them minimalist modern. “In California,” she explained, “less is more.”
Back in Mississippi Truely had never learned less-is-more or any of that. He was pretty sure less-is-more was some indulgent concept only a rich person would think up. Down in Hinds County less was less and more was more and everybody knew the difference. What he liked most were the floor-to-ceiling windows and the sights beyond. Two weeks visiting Courtney and Hastings was more than enough to dazzle Truely Noonan, son of the South. Afterward he had gone home to Mississippi changed.
IT WAS CLEAR to Truely’s parents that he had taken to California same as Courtney had and come down with a serious case of California dreaming that would keep him feverish all the next year. Not long after his trip he sat at the kitchen table and filled out a small stack of college applications, among them an application to San Jose State. “San Joe’s?” his mother said when she looked over his shoulder. “What kind of school is that?”
�
��It’s a good school,” Truely said.
Courtney and Hastings wanted him to apply to Berkeley and Stanford instead, because as they put it, “a degree from there will open doors for you the rest of your life.” Hastings was a Berkeley man himself. He liked to make that known too.
It would have been a long shot, but maybe Truely could have gotten in those schools since he was near the top of his class in Hinds County and had blown the lid off the SAT, which was somewhat of an embarrassment to him back in Mississippi, where an excess of brains was generally frowned upon. But when Courtney had taken him to look at both schools he decided that neither one was a real fit for him. The glut of privilege and money was hard for a Mississippi boy to embrace. Unlike Hastings, he didn’t have the prerequisite sense of entitlement. In Mississippi they might forgive you for being smart, but never for acting smart.
A few days later, while they were shoveling a load of manure over tilled garden soil, his daddy broke the silence, saying, “Son, I’m not against college, you know that, right? But I hope you don’t set out to try to be something you’re not.”
Truely paused, bare-chested, shovel in hand, his ball cap sweat-soaked to his head. His daddy had never said such a thing to him before. It didn’t set right. He took off his ball cap and slapped it against a fence post, a spray of sweat flying out. “I don’t know what you’re getting at.”
“Too many books can change a man — and not for the best sometimes.”
“What’s your point?” Truely slung a heap of pungent manure over the newly dug soil and tried to stir it in with the blade of the shovel like he had watched his daddy do so many times before.
“A man’s got to know who he is. He’s got to accept what he knows.” His daddy was going over the spot Truely was working, rearranging the soil with his hoe.
Eat, Drink, and Be From Mississippi Page 3
