The Georgia segment of the trail was rewarding, affirming for each their ability to meet the challenge before them. The next segment, the Smokies, was more disheartening for Lilly. She attributed her exhaustion to the arduous mountains they were conquering daily. Nightly, she collapsed in Tony’s arms, certain the next day would be easier.
“I had no idea these mountains were like this. I pictured gentle rolling hills,” Lilly complained.
“You’ll get stronger and find it easier, Belle,” Tony whispered encouragingly.
Lilly became excited when her breasts started tingling and her belly felt heavy. She hoped she was getting her period at long last. Her period didn’t come and the exhaustion didn’t let up after the trail became easier. Lilly began toying with the idea she might be pregnant. She tried to dismiss the thought, but she knew that before she would menstruate she would ovulate. She also knew with the frequency of their lovemaking, it would not be impossible to get pregnant with her first ovulation.
It was on the portion of the trail that weaves through Tennessee and North Carolina that Lilly realized she was indeed pregnant. Lilly considered telling Tony. She thought he was planning to go their separate ways after the trail. She also knew his sense of responsibility would force him into marriage. She cringed at the thought of snagging him into another marriage.
Lilly decided instead she would, apologetically, say the trail was too much for her and drop out when her abdomen got larger or he became suspicious. She ruefully wondered how Caroline would receive a pregnant nurse. She was so deep in thought that she didn’t notice Tony walking alongside her until he took her arm.
“I’ve heard of white line fever. Is this brown dirt fever?” Tony said. He began to make her laugh with off-color limericks.
She realized she was slowing Tony down in Northern Tennessee. She decided to jump off the trail in Hampton. At least she knew buses could be caught from Elizabethton. Lilly could not find the words to tell Tony she was quitting the trail or the privacy to stumble through the reason.
The day before they were to reach Hampton, Lilly knew, come hell or high water, she had to tell him. Along a straight stretch, she saw Tony’s boots in the middle of the trail. She saw him sitting in the shiny roots of a slippery elm, leaning against the expansive roots. Love for him welled up in her as she studied his face intently looking at the leaves he was twirling.
Lilly waited for him to rise, but he finally said, “Pull up a tree trunk.”
She sat, wondering how to tell him her news.
He said, “We’ll cross through a little town tomorrow, Hampton. That’s near Johnson City and Elizabethton.”
Lilly thought he was searching for a way to get rid of her. “Yes, I know.”
He didn’t speak for a few minutes. She finally said, “I know I’m slowing you down. I’m sorry. I could catch a bus to Atlanta and then fly to Saint Croix. The trail is much harder than I ever dreamed it would be.”
Tony looked up shocked and then quickly looked back down at two acorn tops. “If you want to go, I won’t stop you.”
“It’s not like I want to leave you,” Lilly said, seeing how badly she was hurting him. “I know you are on a tight schedule, and I’m messing you up.”
“That doesn’t matter so much. We could make up time in Virginia and Pennsylvania. I’ll bet we could do Connecticut in three days.”
Lilly couldn’t reply, fearing she would cry.
“Lil, I really love you,” Tony said, putting a hand on her arm.
She lifted it to kiss it. He pulled her to him.
“Lil, I’ve been thinking. While we’re here, we could get married again.”
She jumped back from him, searching his face.
“Lillibelle, we’re right together,” he said firmly.
She found her voice, “I don’t want to come to you like this again, the waif.”
“Lilly, it’s not like that now. You’re a nurse and a musician. You could be an independent woman anywhere. Before it was all wrong, you were grateful, and I was a fucking hero for marrying you, you know?”
“It’s not because of the baby?” Lilly whispered almost imperceptibly.
“Lil, we can adopt babies, lots of babies,” Tony said, sensing her acceptance.
Lilly giggled, putting his hand on her belly. “No, this baby. Our baby.”
“But how? I thought … you c …”
“I’m not sure, but I think I’m pregnant. Something’s different. I think about it all the time.”
Tony put his hand gently over her belly. “You are a little bigger. Lil, how could you be pregnant?”
“I got a pregnancy test at that store while you were at the Laundromat in North Carolina. It takes three hours. It has to sit undisturbed. I didn’t want to tell you.”
“You weren’t going to tell me, were you?” Tony was offended.
“Anthony, don’t get mad. I’d raise the baby right, tell him all about you. How was I supposed to know you were going to ask me to marry you again?” Lilly kissed his face.
“I’m going to be a father, a little baby …oh shit.” Tony smiled.
“I’m not sure. I’ve never been pregnant. It’s stupid things, like my breasts are huge, and they hurt. I keep thinking I’ve been stung by bees or mosquitoes. I thought I was getting my period, but it never came. Then I have to pee all the time. My belly is so full, and I cry a lot.”
“You cry?”
“All the time. And somehow, I just know. Sometimes when I’m walking, I hold my hand on my belly and think …it’s like we’re communicating. I love this baby so much. I hope he looks like you.”
“Aren’t you getting a little ahead of yourself? Let’s go back to the lean-to, and you can start the test. Then we’ll make plans. Even if you’re not pregnant, we still have plans to make.”
“Will you still want to marry me? I’m older now. I won’t run away or let you pull any of that crap you were pulling. I mean if we marry again, it’s for good.” Lilly stood up and reached to pull him up.
“Shit, girl. The divorce was the worst thing that ever happened to me. I’m never going to get divorced again.” Tony took her pack. “We’ve walked five hundred miles together. We can do anything together. Now, let’s go do that test.”
“I can’t do it until tomorrow. It has to be the first urine of the morning. I can carry my own pack.”
Tony never returned her pack but held it in front of him. “We’ll have to make it lighter. Virginia is much easier. Do you think you could walk some more?”
“Sure, I may get slower, but I think I could walk to Vermont anyway.”
“You’ll only get bigger. Let’s take it as it comes.”
“You have to do the whole trail though. When I drop out, I’ll go back to your home and wait for you, but you’ll never have this freedom again. We’ll have a baby who won’t be big enough to hike like this for fifteen years or so. You might never get this much time off again. You have to finish the trail.”
Lilly woke early the next morning and started the test before the sun came up. She took out her journal in which she had made only sporadic entries before and tried to remember every word, every thought of the previous day. She watched him sleep and tried not to worry about the future.
Tony stretched in sleepiness after he got out of his bag. “It’s a beautiful day to get married. What day is it, June 30 or July 1?”
“Don’t know, husband. It’s your turn to make breakfast, so get going.”
“Did you start the test?”
She nodded. “It’s under that oak tree, but don’t look at it yet or you’ll jinx it. It’s got a lot of time left.”
“Jinx it? Lilly you don’t still believe in jinxes?”
“Of course, silly man.”
They ate quietly. Tony broke camp and packed, and then finally said, “It must be long enough now.”
Lilly tried to distract him. “Want to get all spiffed up for the wedding day? Are you going to call Mark?”
/> “I’ll call if he is in the phonebook. I haven’t seen or heard from Mark for five years.”
“I’m going to call the Otts. They were nice to me.”
“Would you quit stalling me?” Tony said, walking around her to get to the oak tree.
She held back, apprehensive.
Tony called, “A ring around the bottom means you’re pregnant, and all one color means you’re a hysterical neurotic, right?”
“I suppose that covers it. I’m sure the manufacturer says it nicer.”
Tony held the tube in his hand, and with a serious face approached her. “Lillibelle, you are a hysterical neurotic …but you are pregnant.”
Lilly spun around, “A baby, a baby. I thought I’d never …Tony can you believe it? We made a baby just by making love. Can you believe it?”
“And you made it through nursing school?”
“Quit teasing me like that. Let’s get moving. You have to marry me now. We wouldn’t want a second-generation bastard.”
“Low blow, Lilly. If you’re going to hit below the belt, I’ll have to reconsider.”
“Am I too mean to marry?”
“You were always too mean to marry, but I guess you caught me.” Tony patted her belly.
“Oh God! That again. There were people that were still waiting for me to start showing a year after we were married.”
“They won’t have to wait so long this time.”
“OK, OK, I concede. That was a terrible shot. No more bastard jokes, and no more oops jokes, OK?” Lilly broke up laughing. “Eileen said I should do this.”
“She said you should have fits of laughter?”
“EO said I should snare you. She said I should leave birth control home and have an accident. I couldn’t talk to her about my infertility. My infertility!” Lilly giggled. “When I show up with my expand-a-band expanded, she’ll think I connived.”
“You two connive all the time. I’d never live close to her for fear you’d turn into Lucy and Ethel. Lil, I need to know something. Would you have married me if you weren’t pregnant?”
“Yes, I would have. I’d have married you in New York if you had asked me. Tony, you told me this once, but it’s true this way too. You are the only man I have ever loved. You are my first and only true love.”
They hitched a ride from Hampton to Elizabethton and found a room to rent in a boarding house. Lilly showered and primped, while Tony went to call Mark. A tee shirt and jeans would not look like a wedding gown. Lilly dug out her pretty nightie and laid it under the mattress to release wrinkles.
Tony returned with six new tee shirts. “I got three mediums for you for expansion purposes. We’ll leave the old reekies in the garbage.” He looked around. “It’s been a while since we’ve had a bed to go to bed in.”
“Keep it in your pants. No nookie-nookie until we’re legal.” Lilly chose a pink tee shirt.
“Did you get in touch with Mark?”
“I spoke to his mother. He’s in Houston working in a paint factory.” Tony gathered his things for a shower.
“I’ll call the Otts.”
Lilly walked to a drug store. There was no answer at the Otts. She stopped to smile at the pregnancy tests and then looked among the paperbacks for a book on prenatal development. She purchased vitamins. She scanned the book as she walked back to the boarding house, not noticing Tony on the porch.
“Hey, baby. Wha’cha doing?” Tony called.
Lilly looked up to laugh, but stopped, surprised at how handsome he looked.
“Your mustache, and beard. Your hair!” she said and then tried to cover her attraction.
“They’ll grow back. What have you got?” he asked taking the book.
“You are so handsome. I think we should get married right away,” Lilly whispered in his ear.
Tony smiled at her. “Did you get in touch with the Otts?”
“No answer. Do you remember where the justice of the peace is?”
“No, I was only there that once. I don’t remember much.”
They spent an hour finding the justice of the peace. In somewhat of an anticlimax, the ceremony was over in five minutes.”
The justice gazed at them with cool disinterest, probably elicited by their attire.
“Please sign the book,” he said.
Tony asked, “How far back does it go?”
“The fourteen years I’ve been JP.”
“Could we look through it?” Lilly asked.
“Why?” The justice was suspicious.
“We were married here in January of nineteen seventy-one,” Tony explained.
“Then why did you marry again?”
“We were divorced. We were too young,” Lilly said to Tony’s annoyance.
Tony found the page and gazed approvingly. Lilly ran her fingertips over their signatures.
The justice took a sudden interest. “You are not from here. Where? New York? You came all the way back here to get married again, dressed like that?”
“We’re on the Appalachian trail. We started in Georgia.”
“Are you going all the way?’
“He …I have to get back to New York next month,” Lilly stopped remembering Tony’s anger about the pregnant talk at their first wedding.
The justice said, “You stayed with my sister and her family. You’re a friend of Diane’s.”
“I haven’t seen her in years. How is she?”
“Fine. Married. In Texas.”
“Did she marry Mark?” Tony asked.
“I don’t know Mark. Her husband is named John.”
“Will you tell your sister thank you,” Lilly said with grace.
“Certainly, and good luck this time.”
Tony was silent walking back to the boarding house.
“Tony, don’t get ticked off at me for talking. It’s not like I told any secrets.”
“I’m not mad Belle,” Tony reassured her. “I was thinking about our packs. You shouldn’t be carrying so much. We’re going to go through everything and jettison.”
“Tony, don’t get nuts. I’m fine.”
“Shouldn’t you see a doctor?”
“The last doctor I went to told me I’d never have kids. I don’t want to go to another stranger. I’ll go to Dr. Feldman. Our baby will be born at St. Andrews with Dr. Feldman. I’ve seen loads of pregnant women. I’m OK. I feel fine. I bought vitamins with iron. I’ll take two a day. They’d give me a pap smear, a VD screen, take my height and weight, and give me a script for vitamins. I don’t have VD or cancer. I’m strong as a mountain lion. I’ve never felt better, or happier, in my life.”
“Don’t hold back anything from me. If you don’t feel right, tell me.”
“Let’s go out to dinner at the restaurant I worked at for a few days,” Lilly suggested.
“If we can find it. But in any case, let’s get a bottle of champagne.”
They never found the restaurant, and they settled for a diner more matched to their attire.
“We’ll have a better wedding night,” Tony promised as they walked back to the boarding house.
“I thought that was one of your better experiences,” Lilly teased.
Tony considered, and then remembered. “I never associate that with our eloping.”
The next morning they left Elizabethton early, leaving a bouquet of wildflowers at the welcome to Elizabethton sign. Lilly noticed Tony’s effort to slow his pace to hers and the encouraging hand that always seemed ready to help
Lilly sang rock and roll songs for him as they hiked.
“Lillibelle, you were such a good musician. Why’d you give it up?”
“Tony, I don’t know. Time constraints. There wasn’t any music where I was in Thailand. I’d love to play again, really play. When Cuando broke up, I finally believed I wasn’t going to be a rock and roll star. The bar scene is too much. I heard too many innuendos. Guys were always coming on to me. I didn’t want that. So many songs were about pickups.”
“Songs are about life,” Tony responded.
“I used to see you all the time.”
“What?”
“In the guys in the bars. I’d see something that would remind me of you.”
“Did you go home with them?”
“No, I couldn’t. I was too scared. I was afraid one of them would turn out to be …”
“Son of Sam?”
“Who’s that?”
“Son of Sam? You were in Cambodia then I guess. He was a random murderer of bar-goers. It got to the point where no one went to bars. Everyone had parties, but that was ridiculous because he mainly went up to parked cars and fired upon the occupants. He lived in Yonkers.”
“Hometown boy makes good?” Lilly joked.
“You were away for the blackout too. There was tons of looting. They broke my living room window. Actually it was only a week after I moved around the corner to my apartment. When I told my father, he said, ‘a warehouse with windows?’”
“You lived around the corner?”
“First, I lived in what now is my place while they fixed up the photographer’s studio. Then I moved in there while TJ’s space was made into an apartment. TJ moved in, and I had my house, our house, constructed. I rented the photo studio. It was down to the wire. I couldn’t get ConEd to turn on my electricity, and the photographer was scheduled to move in. It is great though. I make a nice piece of change from the rents.”
“‘A warehouse with windows.’ We’ll have to have your parents to dinner.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that. You’ll have to reconcile yourself to my family.”
“I’ll try. I think your mom will help. Pops thinks I’m a whore.”
“Maybe when he gets a look at your belly …”
“We should have called Ma and Pops from Elizabethton,” Lilly said.
“I thought about it, but I wanted it to be only you and me,” Tony said.
The nights they were alone were spent reading until the light gave out. They had exhausted the poetry and were writing in Lilly’s journal together. The night they came across a New York Times in a lean-to, they celebrated for an hour at their find before realizing the date on the paper was Lilly’s twenty-fourth birthday.
A Yonkers Kinda Girl Page 43