I scan the room, but I don’t see Phillip anywhere. I left the festivities after the cake cutting and the first dance to take a call from Blossom, who had just seen the pictures I had posted on Facebook from the wedding.
She kept saying how much she wished she had stayed when she brought me Faramond. She told me that she’s working a double shift at the steak house, and that later, she and her dad are going to the town center to see Amarillo’s fireworks.
“Lou says to tell you hello,” she said, and I returned the greeting because that was the first I’d heard from her dad since I left Texas.
I head toward the restrooms. There’s a line outside the ladies’ but nobody near the men’s.
“Hey, Al, are you going to write a feature about the wedding?”
It’s Kimmie who wants to know. I knew she saw Ben snap a picture when she was singing; that was probably how she lost her place in the music, trying to make sure she was giving her best side to the photographer.
“Just the usual,” I say and walk in the opposite direction.
“Did you like the song?” she is yelling.
“Beautiful, Kimmie,” I yell back.
I’m sweating now. Even with a strapless dress, it is hot in eastern North Carolina on July fourth. I hope the fireworks don’t last long; I’m ready to get home to the programmed sixty-eight-degree temperature that is the year-round setting for my air-conditioned house.
Where is he? I wonder, going from the main room, where I am congratulated for my new position (and ribbed a little about being a stepsister to a toddler), to the kitchen, where Dolly wants to know what to do with the top layer of the cake, which apparently the bride and groom usually save for their first anniversary.
“Ask Dixie,” I tell her, since I’m the last person to ask about cake and protocol. I was going to take a bite out of it when I saw it on the counter next to the fridge. Little did I know you’re supposed to save it for a year.
“Hey, Al.” It’s J.T.
“Hey, brother-in-law, how are you?”
How is it that I am running into everyone except my date?
He reaches for my hand, which I give to him, and he holds it to his chest. His shirt is unbuttoned at the top and his tie is loosened. He’s had a few glasses of champagne himself.
“That was really a great wedding,” he tells me.
“It is a nice affair,” I agree and try to pull my hand away.
“Did I tell you thank you for hooking us up with Dixie?”
“You did not, but I was glad to do it.”
“She’s quite a catch for your old man, huh?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Say, are Dixie’s finances liquid?”
I have no idea what this means.
“I believe they are, J.T.” And I finally get out from his clutches, but he’s still talking to me as I try to walk away.
“Because if she’s liquid, I have a couple of stocks that I think are burners, and if we could get her to throw some cash in my direction I’m confident that I could push her forward without even taking a peek at the whole portfolio.”
“I will tell her that you’re looking for her, J.T.; but maybe you should give her and Dad a little space to have a honeymoon first.”
“Yeah, right, okay, the honeymoon. And then I’ll slide down here and set up a meeting.”
“That sounds great, J.T. You slide on down next month.”
“A month? They’re going to be gone a month?”
I keep trying to walk away, but he keeps following me.
“Sandra and I only had two weeks for our honeymoon—they’re going for a month? Well, where are they going?”
I turn the corner. J.T.’s right behind me. And he literally collides with me when I stop short. And then we are right there. All of us. The four of us. At the same place. The same narrow hallway that appears to go nowhere. J.T. and I at one end and Phillip and Sandra at the other, standing in a corner, Phillip leaning closer to my sister than he’s ever leaned near me. And he’s saying something to her, his arm resting on the wall above her head, the other hand reaching out to touch her on the hip, and she’s glancing down, but you can still see the biggest smile on her face.
“Sandra?”
J.T. stepped around me when he saw what I saw. And he was present enough to be able to speak. A name. His wife’s name.
But I don’t even wait to see what happens next because this is like a bad rerun for me. I turn around, run past the kitchen where Dolly is boxing up the cake layer, past the ladies’ room where Kimmie is just now coming out and I don’t even care that she has to step aside so I won’t knock her over, out the side door, barely missing one of the large fans. I never even see my father when he looks in my direction; and I miss all of the fireworks, including, apparently, the ones in the back hallway between a member of my family and the boy I have loved since I was twelve.
chapter fifty-six
I hear ghosts. Muted voices, whispers from somewhere close by. Casserole is standing on the bed, unbalanced and tipping over. Old Joe is watching from the top of the dresser. I see light coming into my room; I assume the sun did rise and I feel like I may have swallowed one of the stuffed animals from my dog’s collection. I feel fur in my mouth and throat.
When I try to sit up, the room starts to spin and I decide the supine position is best. I lie still and try to think about what happened and where I am, and I still hear the ghosts, so I’m also trying to figure out if I died and that’s why dead people are talking to me.
“I think she’s awake,” I hear one of them say. I think this one is a male ghost. The whisper sounds like a deep voice.
“Is she dressed? Because if she’s not dressed I think we should just call her.” This is another male ghost.
“I can’t see,” says the first one. “And we’ve tried to call, but she won’t answer. And she’s moved her spare key.”
Two male ghosts talking near me. Casserole is whining and wagging his tail, looking out the window. He’s going to fall on me or the floor if the ghosts don’t leave.
“Knock so she can hear you.”
There’s a knock and my dog falls on top of me.
I try to open my eyes, but they are stuck together, just like my tongue is stuck to the roof of my mouth. I move my arm, just to make sure my limbs are still intact.
“I think she’s up.”
I squint to see two men standing by my window, both of them staring at me with their hands cupped around their faces. I consider being anxious or afraid; but frankly, I don’t have the energy, and besides, they don’t really seem like dangerous ghosts. I slowly try to open my eyes until I finally get a clear view.
“Yep, she’s up.” And that one waves.
I see the bad comb-over and know right away the identity of one of the ghosts, who isn’t actually a ghost but rather my employee.
“Is she naked?” There’s the other; and now he waves as well.
James William and Ben are outside my bedroom window.
I turn to the clock. It’s three. Must be three in the afternoon, not three in the morning, since my room is flooded in afternoon light.
I sit up again, trying to manage the spinning. This time I stay up too long, and I don’t know how, but I am able to jump up from the bed and run to the bathroom and get my head in the toilet. I believe this is what is generally referred to as a hangover. Now that I am having one, I wish the two men at my window were actually ghosts because then I’d be dead. And death would be preferable to this.
I lie back down on the floor. The coolness of the tile is uncharacteristically soothing. I turn on my side so that I can rest my face on it and I think I may stay like this forever. Except that my cat is having none of it; it is past time for his first meal of the day. He walks over me and around me and down my arms and up my legs. I peek into the bedroom
, noticing how much more polite my dog is being. Casserole even looks a little sorry for me.
I hear a voice from the front of the house.
“Al, are you okay?”
There are footsteps coming in my direction.
“Al, are you in here?”
I hope this isn’t Ben.
I feel the presence of someone standing over me, but I can’t see because Old Joe is flipping his tail across my eyes. The presence draws closer and my cat walks away.
“You look awful.”
Daddy.
My head is in the toilet again; only this time there is a cold cloth on the back of my neck.
“My, oh, my,” he says, but not like he’s angry or ashamed, more like he wishes he could take it all away, the same way he used to say it when I was little and scared or sad. “My, oh, my,” he’d say and sweep me in his arms.
He sits down beside me and I fall against his chest until I remember his recent surgery and I yank myself away.
“It’s okay,” he says. “You’re on the side that doesn’t hurt.”
And I carefully lean on him again, the toilet now supporting us both.
“You need some water?” he asks.
I shake my head, even though I know I could use something. I just don’t want him to leave.
“Pretty bad?”
I nod, thinking, This is as bad as it gets.
“Headache?”
And then I think, There’s going to be a headache, too?
“We’ll get you some aspirin and tomato juice. You’ll be okay.”
I nod, even though I’m pretty certain I’m not drinking tomato juice.
“Where’s Dixie?” I’m finally able to form words.
“She’s at home with the boys.”
“Honeymoon?”
“We’re not leaving until next week. Her sister can’t babysit until then, and I’ve got a doctor’s appointment.”
I nod, but only a very little.
“You want to talk about what happened?”
I close my eyes, thinking he’s going to tell me, since I have no real memories I can count on at present.
There’s no response. Maybe he doesn’t know, either, and he’s waiting for me to tell him.
“I think I drank two bottles of wine.”
“I didn’t really mean that part.”
Oh.
“I mean do you want to talk about what happened to make you drink two bottles of wine. Phillip and Sandra?”
“Seems like I have a knack for walking in and surprising folks.”
He sighs.
“J.T. punched him in the face and Sandra stayed the night with Dixie and me. She rented a car and headed back to Asheville this morning. She thinks she can work things out, that it was just a misunderstanding.”
He pauses.
“Was it?”
I shake my head.
“Well, knowing your sister, she’ll spin it however she can to get what she wants. Did you talk to Phillip?”
I shake my head again and just sit in the silence, rest in this safe place of my father’s arms. Old Joe saunters back in, makes a lot of noise.
“Your cat’s hungry.”
I nod but still don’t move. We sit like this for a while.
“Yesterday, in that dress, with your hair all fixed up, you were the spitting image of your mom, did you know that?”
I start to cry and I don’t even know why.
“Do you realize that you are now older than she was when she died?”
I nod.
“Thirty-one. What person doesn’t live past thirty-one?”
I shake my head.
“Dixie’s thirty-two. What are the odds of that?”
I close my eyes.
“That I’d marry a woman one year older than your mom when she died. I guess some shrink would have a field day with that. I don’t know that I was thinking about that when I fell for Dixie; but maybe there’s some deep need to reclaim what I missed.”
I feel him shrug.
“But you know what? It doesn’t matter because I just feel lucky to have found her.”
I nod.
And we just stay where we are for a few more minutes.
“Are you ready to get up?”
I shake my head.
“You want to talk about the news?”
I shake my head again.
“Okay, I’ve got a new question, then. Where did Sandra get the idea that Dixie has a lot of money?”
“I think I’m ready now,” I say and the two of us, as wobbly as Casserole, lean on the toilet and then on each other until we are both upright.
chapter fifty-seven
IT is Tuesday and I am sitting at my desk working on the makeup, cropping and adding cutlines to the pictures Ben took at the park. We’re using most of the front page and the split to cover the fireworks as well as both the dinner and the dance. He took over a hundred photographs and we’ve already selected the ones that best cover the community-wide holiday event.
There’s one of the mayor standing in front of the band (Town Mayor Leads Patriotic Song), one of a little boy sitting on the shoulders of a police officer (A Celebration of Local Heroes), and a couple of great shots of the fireworks, red and blue and white, streaming across the night sky (Clayton Lights Up the Fourth). Ben recorded and checked the spelling of all the names; and I have to say, especially considering that he was drinking pretty heavily the entire time, he did an outstanding job.
I add a few lines to the jumps, finish the cold type, and get the edition ready for print. James William covered baseball, both a piece he wrote about the local farm team and several articles from the wire about the national pennant race. Jasper did a feature on the reenactment of the Civil War that is happening this weekend, as well as a story about the local fire station adding two new trucks. And Dad submitted a personal piece, thanking the people in town for all their support and announcing his retirement from the Times and News.
I wrote just a couple of pieces, one about the wedding and another about the Lone Night Strings, since the band just got a recording contract with a studio in Nashville. The rest of the paper is hard news from the Associated Press and includes all the local calendars. With the holiday photographs filling most of the space, it wasn’t a hard edition to edit.
Since I’ve finished the layout and it’s ready to roll, I look through some of the other pictures in Ben’s photo files, the wedding shots as well as some from the reception. I see some really outstanding ones that I know Dixie and Dad will love. There are typical poses of a bride and groom—signing their license, serving each other cake—and some lovely ones of the entire family, including one of Dixie’s two little boys clinging to my father’s legs.
There are several shots of the ceremony itself, with the wedding party standing around the altar and the pastor offering a blessing, as well as a beautiful one of Dad when he’s putting the ring on Dixie’s finger, the tears streaming down his face, and another of her walking down the aisle, wearing the widest smile I’ve ever seen.
There are a few of me; but none I am pleased with well enough to print, since I have never been photogenic. In fact, there are a few that I simply delete. And, of course, there are lots of shots of Sandra, since she has always known how to pose and where to locate the photographer, finding ways to offer up her best side.
My sister is a beautiful woman, much prettier than me; and I’m really honest when I say that this no longer bothers me. She always knows what dress to wear to accentuate her size 2 figure, the right colors to bring out her natural beauty, the most trendy hairstyle that keeps her looking young and stylish. Even years after the pageants, she is still a beauty queen; there’s no doubt about that. And in the pictures where she stands next to her husband, it’s easy to see why they would
be attracted to each other, how perfect they look together, how well they fit. And seeing them, seeing their pictures from that night, actually makes me hope that they have worked things out, that they are back in Asheville, happy and secure, having already forgotten the entire holiday celebration and whatever it was that J.T. and I walked in on right before the fireworks.
There are also a few pictures of Phillip in Ben’s stash, a couple of the two of us standing side by side, him tall and comfortable in his own skin, me with my hunched shoulders and goofy smile. He is still just as handsome as I remember him to be, both from the wedding and from every day in high school so long ago.
He’s as good on the other side of the camera as my sister and her husband, as easy with a goofy grin as he is looking serious and attentive. And as I study his face and remember how it was to be with him, how really nice it was to be beside him, I honestly hope he finds a new love and is able to settle down and have the four children he claims to want.
I hit the arrow and glance through the next page of photographs, without offering any description or headline of what I have just seen.
“You done?” Ben surprises me, since I thought he was at the hospital covering the ceremony for breaking ground on a new wing.
“Oh, hey.” I click off his files. “You took some really nice shots,” I tell him. “Daddy and Dixie will love them.”
“Where did they go on their honeymoon anyway?”
“Wrightsville Beach,” I reply. “The editor at the News and Observer let them use his beach house for the month.”
“Well, that was generous, seeing how it’s still the busy season and all.”
“I know. I thought the same thing.”
“Have you heard from them?”
I shake my head. “Not since they left.”
Ben comes over and sits across from me.
“The ceremony over?”
He nods. “Too hot to stand out there for very long. The CEO of the hospital had to be taken to the emergency room for heatstroke. He was wearing a suit.”
Traveling Light Page 24
