by Ann B. Ross
“Nobody’s asking you to, especially not Coleman. Now, I don’t care what Pastor Petree said to the contrary, this whole matter of marital authority and submission ought to be dismissed out of hand. And I wish I’d had sense enough to do it when it might’ve made a difference. Besides, when have you started listening to what preachers say? I thought you’d given up on church. Which is another subject I mean to take up with you one of these days. Now, I grant you, I used to think that’s what a wife was supposed to do, but that was before I knew what that kind of blindness could lead to.” I walked over to her and put my hands on her shoulders. “Binkie, let’s get you and Coleman married since everything’s ready and waiting. You won’t regret it, and even if you do, you can rectify it later on. And that little child will thank you for the rest of its life.”
She tightened her mouth and shook her head. “I’m just not sure I want to be married. I don’t think I could put up with all the complications and compromises that marriage requires.” She gave a quick laugh. “Too used to making my own way and my own decisions, I guess.”
“Binkie,” I said, “have you thought about the complications and compromises that having a child requires? You are making a terrible mistake if you think it’ll be easy handling them by yourself. Don’t you know that you have a man who’d do anything in this world for you and this child?”
“I know,” she said, her voice softening. “I really do know.” She turned the ring on her finger, then showed it to me. I blinked at the size of it. “Coleman gave me this,” she said with a soft laugh. “I didn’t think I wanted one, you know, like everyone else.” She gazed at it and sighed. “I guess I shouldn’t be wearing it.”
“Oh, wear it, for goodness’ sake. Maybe it’ll remind you of a sacred promise you made. Binkie, let me tell you, you won’t find a finer man on the face of the earth than Coleman Bates, and he is just so hurt, thinking you don’t care enough to marry him.”
“I know, Miss Julia, and I hate it, I really do. But I’m just not sure enough to go through with it.”
“Lord, honey, it’d take a miracle to be sure about anything in this life.”
“Maybe that’s what I need.” She gave me a tired smile. “A miracle.”
Chapter 24
I drove home, clutching the steering wheel as hard as I could, just so torn up inside I hardly knew where I was going. It was all I could do to keep from going back and throttling that recalcitrant girl. Of all the perverse ways of thinking, she took the cake.
It was hormones that was causing it. There was no other explanation for her contrariness that went against what anybody else in their right mind would do. It’s a well-known fact that expectant-mother hormones can disrupt even the most level-headed woman, and Binkie had always been a little skewed to begin with. I thought of all I’d heard about the strange cravings women with child have. If Binkie kept on in her perversity, she wouldn’t have anybody to send to the store when a craving for pickles and ice cream hit her.
Pitiful, is what it was. And infuriating, if you want to know the truth of it. Half the town, well, maybe fifty or sixty, would be showing up on Saturday to witness a wedding, and how was I going to explain that the bride had a case of liberated independence and wouldn’t be showing up? Claiming hormonal influences wouldn’t exactly help matters.
One minute I was so mad at Binkie I could’ve wrung her neck. But the next, I felt like throwing my head back and howling in frustration and disappointment. Then I tried to come to terms with the fact that there might not be a wedding on Saturday, and maybe never. I was just going to have to stand by and watch Coleman and that unborn child suffer. To say nothing of the suffering I’d be put through for planning a wedding without a bride and groom, as well as Hazel Marie, who’d suffer for not getting to be a bridesmaid. And all because Binkie had some twisted notion about forcing Coleman into marriage, when of all the men least likely to need forcing, it would be Coleman.
Well, the only thing left was to pray for a miracle that would change Binkie’s mind. I hadn’t noticed too many miracles taking place lately, though, so it wasn’t something I could put money on.
I drove slowly down the street, turned the corner onto Polk and headed toward the house. Two blocks away, I saw something that made me come to a rolling stop. I peered through the windshield, unable to believe my eyes. The crowd of people had doubled and, maybe, tripled, since I’d left. I could hardly believe my eyes as I came to a stop in the middle of the road. I sat there watching as more people came from one end of the street to the other, converging in a mass directly across from the Family Life Center. And it seemed to me that every last one of them had a candle, for I could see the flames expand as they lit one candle from another. As I watched, a considerable number of the people went down on their knees, right there on the gritty sidewalk. And half of them in the street.
Finally I eased toward the house, passing more people who were joining the crowd, and turned carefully into the driveway. Then I hurried into the house.
“Hazel Marie,” I called softly, not wanting to wake Little Lloyd. Tapping on her door, I called again.
“What happened?” she said, flinging the door open. Little Lloyd was in his pajamas sitting up on her bed watching television. “What did Binkie say?”
“Oh, Hazel Marie, I hate to tell you this, but I don’t think she’s going to do it. I tried every argument I could come up with, but it was like talking to a brick wall. I declare, that girl may be a smart lawyer, but she doesn’t have an ounce of common sense. Little Lloyd, what in the world are you watching?” He was sitting there, his eyes glued to the screen where a half-naked girl was performing calisthenics to something that passed for music.
“Britney Spears,” he said.
“Hazel Marie, is that good for him? Those gyrations’re going to pull that girl’s back out, if she’s not careful.”
“It’s all right, Miss Julia. Now, tell me what Binkie said. Maybe there’s still hope that she’ll come around. I’ve been counting on being a bridesmaid.” She looked with longing eyes toward her bridesmaid’s dress hanging on the closet door.
“Yes, well, I’ve been counting on a wedding, period. I don’t know, Hazel Marie.” I sank down into a chair, just about overcome with the effort I’d put out on Binkie’s behalf, and getting no results, either. “I don’t know what to do with her, but I’ve a good mind never to speak to her again. Although how I’ll be able to manage that when her baby comes, I don’t know.”
“It just makes me want to cry,” Hazel Marie said, then went right ahead and started. “I mean, here I am wanting to get married so bad and J.D. is too stubborn to do it. And she’s got Coleman who’d give his eyeteeth to marry her, and she spurns him.”
“It’s worse than that, Hazel Marie,” I said. “She’s not exactly spurning him. From what I gathered, she expects to continue right on in the same unseemly manner that got her into this situation to begin with, but without any legal bond between them. Or between Coleman and that little . . . , don’t listen, Little Lloyd.”
“No’m, I won’t.”
“We’ll talk about this in the morning, Hazel Marie,” I went on, nodding and frowning toward the sharp little ears that could easily listen to me and Britney Spears, too. Then, in spite of my mind being filled with the problem of Binkie, I recalled the street gathering outside. “Those people we saw last night are back, and there’re more of them. I declare, I wish I knew what they’re doing. I could hardly get in the driveway for all the people. If Binkie hadn’t sapped all my strength, I’d go out there and run them off.”
“At least they’re quiet,” Hazel Marie said. “We’ll see about them in the morning. I know you’re tired, so you go on to bed and try to sleep. Want me to go upstairs with you?”
I shook my head. “I’ll manage.” She patted me on the shoulder and walked out into the hall with me. She stood there watching as I plodded up the stairs to my bed.
* * *
Friday morning, the day
before the wedding, found me almost beside myself. I’d sat up half the night hoping to waylay Coleman, but he’d not come home, which both soothed and agitated me. It could’ve meant that he’d stayed the night with Binkie, an event I disapproved of and hoped for at the same time. Or it could’ve meant that his campaign hadn’t worked and he couldn’t face my disappointment.
On the other hand, Sheriff Frady could have had him and every other deputy out looking for Dixon, so that Coleman had no time to pursue a personal matter. As I thought about that possibility, it began to make sense to me. Earl Frady kept his fingers on the pulse of the town, as any elected official would do, and he could read the newspaper and hear the nightly news just as the voters could. This morning’s headline in The Abbotsville Press blared out: STILL AT LARGE! with a long article on the ineptitude of the sheriff’s department. With that kind of publicity, the sheriff would have Coleman out beating the bushes for Dixon Hightower instead of beating down Binkie’s door as he ought to’ve been doing.
“Hazel Marie,” I said, as we stood that morning in her bedroom looking at our wedding dresses again. “Sometimes I think I’m the most foolish woman alive. Here I am, going on with a wedding without the participation of the principal parties. I mean, when do I just throw up my hands and say, ‘Okay, you don’t want it, we won’t have it’?”
“Oh, don’t say that, Miss Julia,” Hazel Marie said, pressing her fingers against her mouth. “Remember, we still have all those people coming so we’ll have some kind of festivity, with or without a ceremony. We just have to set our minds on having the wedding, and it’ll come about. I believe in having a positive attitude, don’t you?”
Lillian, tying an apron around herself, appeared at the door of Hazel Marie’s room. “Miss Julia, them people’s back outside. An’ they’s more of ’em this mornin’.”
“Well, for goodness’ sake,” I said. “What’re they doing?”
“Jus’ standin’ ’round, lookin’ like they lookin’ at that fam’ly buildin’.”
I waved my hand, dismissing the problem. “I can’t be bothered with them, Lillian. As long as they’re not being a public nuisance, they can look as long as they want to. Though, Lord knows, I could find something better to look at.”
The firing up of a popping motor outside Hazel Marie’s back window stopped any further conversation. “There’s Raymond,” I said, over the noise. “Right on time, too. He’ll have this yard looking good in no time. I better go speak to him, and let him know it has to be perfect for tomorrow.” I stopped and rubbed my forehead. “Although I don’t know why I’m bothering with it now.”
“Oh, please don’t say that,” Hazel Marie said. “Let’s keep our spirits up, and maybe it’ll work out.”
“I’m trying,” I said, “believe me, I am.” I started for the door. “Well, let me go and see Raymond.”
“Uh, Miss Julia?” Hazel Marie stopped me. “I think his name is Ramón.”
“Why, Hazel Marie, you know I don’t speak that language. I’ll be back in a few minutes, Lillian, and we’ll go over the last-minute things.”
As soon as I stepped out into the backyard, Raymond turned off his lawn mower, letting it sputter to a stop in a cloud of smoke. He took off his hat and smiled shyly at me, careful not to meet my eye. A spark of sunlight, glinting off the large gold cross on a chain around his neck, flashed in my eyes.
“Good morning, Raymond,” I said. “I’m glad to see you. It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it? Now, what I want you to do is to get the whole yard, front and back, looking as good as it possibly can. We hope to have a wedding here tomorrow, and I want everything spick-and-span.”
“Sí.” He glanced at me, smiled and let his eyes slide away.
“I know you’ll do a good job.”
“Sí.”
“Knock on the door when you’re through, and I’ll pay you. But take as long as you need to get it looking good; I don’t care if it takes all day.”
“Sí.”
Pleased with my ability to communicate with a speaker of a foreign language, I started to go inside. Then, with another thought, I turned back to him. “Oh, Raymond, do you know why there’re so many people out on the street today?” And recalling the similar gathering last night, I added, “And last night, too?”
He smiled, ducked his head and said, “Sí.”
“Well, why?”
“¿Por qué?”
“What?”
“¿ Qué?”
I shrugged my shoulders, and he shrugged his, still smiling. “Well, carry on,” I said, waving my hand, and he did, reaching to pull the starter cord.
I was feeling somewhat less pleased with my communication skills as I went back into the kitchen, but maybe Raymond didn’t know any more about it than I did.
Little Lloyd met me at the back door, having just come in from a short last day of school. He held the screen door for me and said, “Miss Julia, come quick. The truck’s here with the piano and the chairs. They’re about to move them in.”
Lillian and Hazel Marie joined us in the living room to supervise the move. The truck had been backed up into the driveway, and the back door let down to form a ramp. Two men carefully moved the spinet piano on a wheeled platform down the ramp and onto the drive. Then they maneuvered it across the lawn and up a ramp across the porch steps. Little Lloyd held the screen door open for them and, first thing I knew, they had it situated in front of the bookcase beside the fireplace.
“I hope the thing’s still in tune after all that manhandling,” I said, cringing at the thought of what Miss Mattie Mae Morgan might do if she hit a few clunkers in the middle of the ceremony. If we had a ceremony.
The men made two dozen trips from the truck to the house, bringing in the little gilt chairs. Hazel Marie and I got them arranged in rows facing the place where the arch would be.
“Miss Julia,” Hazel Marie said, “these chairs are awfully little and spindly. I’m not sure Miss Mildred Allen can fit on one of them. She might need two, the way she spreads out. You think they’ll hold her?”
“Lord, Hazel Marie,” I said. “I can’t worry about that now.” But as I lined up another row, I went on, “On second thought, maybe we should see that she gets one of the dining room chairs. I’ll tell Mr. Pickens to watch for her, and keep her away from these. We sure don’t need another catastrophe, which it would be if one crumpled up under her.”
When one of the movers brought the receipt for me to sign, he said, “We’ll send somebody later today to check that piano, be sure it’s in tune.” Which relieved my mind considerably. Then, as he gave me the carbon copy, he added, “Got a lot of traffic on this street, don’t you?”
“Not usually,” I said, glancing over his shoulder as we stood in the door and, sure enough, that steady stream of cars, vans and pickups was still at it.
I didn’t know where they’d come from or where they were going, but it came to me that there might be some street-repair work going on somewhere and traffic was being rerouted along Polk. It didn’t make much difference to me, as long as they were cleared out by the next day, but while I watched the rental company’s truck ease out into the street, a bottleneck happened right in front of my eyes. The Watering Can’s delivery van pulled out of the traffic and edged to the curb, just as the rental truck made a sharp turn out of the driveway, blocking both lanes of the narrow street. Between the people jammed up on the sidewalk and the cars jammed up on both sides of the rental truck, my quiet street looked like rush hour in downtown Atlanta. I stood on the porch, my hands on my hips, surveying the confusion. While the men in the rental truck and Harriet in the delivery van had a number of unpleasant things to say to each other, I noticed that a good many of the occupants in the cars seemed content to wait out the situation. They leaned out the car windows, staring and pointing at the Family Life Center. I intended to tell Pastor Ledbetter that was proof I wasn’t the only person in town who thought the thing was a blight on the landscape.
I couldn’t stand to watch the confusion and went back into the house. Before long, Harriet came puffing up on the porch, carrying two huge Boston ferns in hanging baskets.
“What’s going on, Mrs. Springer?” she asked, putting down the baskets and wiping her forehead with her arm. “Where’re all these cars coming from? My goodness, it’s hot.”
“It certainly is. I’ll have Lillian bring you some iced tea. And as for the traffic, I think they’re working on some of those potholes somewhere and have the streets blocked off. Little Lloyd, make yourself useful and help Miss Harriet bring things in.”
As I went back through the living room, Hazel Marie was taking a dust cloth to the chairs, going over each one to be sure they were clean and ready for our guests.
“Harriet’s going to bring in the arch in a minute, Hazel Marie. You might have to move a few chairs so she can get it in.”
“Yes, ma’am, I’ll help her.”
I went on into the kitchen and was brought up short at the sight of milk bottles and ketchup bottles and mustard jars and mayonnaise jars and plastic bowls, with and without lids covering every inch of space on the counters. Lillian was bent over reaching into the open refrigerator.
“I’m cleanin’ out this ’frigerator, if you wonderin’,” she said. “I got to make room for that caterin’ lady when she come tomorrow.”
“Was all this stuff in the refrigerator?”
“You be surprised what was in this thing. I been th’owin’ out, right an’ left. If anybody want any lunch, they better grab it now, ’cause it gonna be gone pretty quick.”
“I guess we better get in here, then, and get it while we can. I’ll call Hazel Marie and Little Lloyd.”
As I started out, Lillian said, “Tell Little Lloyd I already got him a peanut butter an’ banana sam’ich made. You an’ Miss Hazel Marie got to fend for yo’selves.”
