by Peggy Webb
“A mother just knows these things. Have you told Lovie?”
“Not yet. I wanted to tell you first.”
Before I can put the finishing touches on Mama’s hair, she whips her cell phone out of her caftan pocket, punches her contact list and shouts, “I’m going to be a grandmother and you can say you heard it from me first.”
“Who’s that, Mama?”
“Lovie. Here.” She thrusts her phone into my hand then marches off to sit beside Fayrene on my love seat, unfinished hair and all. I’m not about to let her walk out of this shop with her hair looking like a bad advertisement.
I grab the Hold and Shine and set to work with the hair spray in one hand and the cell phone in the other. Multi-tasking is one of my specialties. Considering Mama’s love for the element of surprise, it has to be.
While I’m confirming the news and answering a million questions from my cousin, including why I didn’t tell her first, Mama proceeds to start planning a baby announcement party with Fayrene, right under my nose.
“Lovie can cater and I can do a baby naming contest,” Fayrene says. “Maybe we’ll set up a collection jar at Gas, Grits and Guts and give the contest winner a trip to Viagra Falls.”
“Holy cow! Lovie, I’ve got to go.” My cousin is still asking questions when I hang up to lay down the law. “Mama, you and Fayrene will do no such thing. Jack and I will name our baby. And besides, I’m not even showing.”
“Flitter,” Mama says, and then she and Fayrene grab their purses and flounce out.
I watch until that flashy pink car of hers is out of sight then I sink onto my own love seat, everything about me wilting, even my hair.
“Boy, I really told them off.”
I wonder if pregnancy is making me weak-willed. I perk myself up by making one last circuit of Hair.Net, trying to figure out a place for the nursery/playroom. Likely I’ll have to have an addition built. I can knock out the south wall to the styling room then put folding doors so Jackie Nell will be constantly in view but can have some privacy when she’s napping.
By the time I lock up and climb into my Dodge Ram truck, it’s already getting dark. Fayrene’s neon signs are glowing in Gas, Grits and Guts and the neighborhood is coming alive with lights. I hope Jack has the porch light on. I want to pour a glass of sweet tea and sit on my front porch swing, holding hands with my husband and relaxing.
Major mistake! When my truck pulls into the driveway, my house and yard light up like the runway at Tupelo Regional Airport. Jack’s standing there smiling like he’s invented Christmas. Who could miss him? With all those lights, you can see him clear to Graceland in Memphis, Tennessee.
I have to collect myself before I can get out of the truck.
“Do you like it?” Jack says.
“I’m overwhelmed.” And not in a good way.
“Great.” He wraps his arm around me and proceeds to lead me up the sidewalk like I’m ninety and about to fall dead at any minute. “I installed motion sensors. Nobody can sneak up on you now.”
“I’ll say.”
“Wait till you see what else!”
I’m hoping for something along the lines of paint for the nursery or a brochure from Morgan Furniture Company showing a variety of baby cribs and rocking chairs. Bitsy Morgan, the owner, is one of my beauty shop regulars. She knows me well enough to steer Jack in the right direction.
“I’m dying to know.” Almost literally. I’m so parched I could drink the Pacific Ocean, and what with all the excitement at the beauty shop I can’t remember the last time I emptied my bladder.
Thank goodness, Jack takes me straight upstairs to the master bathroom.
“You must have read my mind.”
“Look!” Oblivious, he lifts the rug – new, I notice, and in a nauseating color that clashes with the walls. “Non-skid bottom.” Then he whisks the shower curtains back and there’s the same hideous colored rug covering the beautiful washed pebbled shower bottom. “Non-slip, water-proof shower rug. And one in the tub, too! Can’t have my girl falling and hurting herself and the baby.”
“No, indeedy.” The rugs are the color of turnip greens, a dish I despise, even when Lovie cooks it. I’m about to lose my lunch. And I guess I turn the same sickly shade as the rugs.
“Cal?” He peers at me like I’ve just grown horns and a tail. “Is something wrong?”
“Just hormones, Jack.” I give him a kiss that promises more. “All of this is just… wonderful, but I really, really have to use the bathroom.”
“Sure.” He just stands there looking overly helpful.
“In private, please.”
He leaves and closes the door – gently, I notice. I almost giggle. Who knew a dangerous man could step so lightly around a pregnant wife? I can’t wait to tell Lovie.
See, this is the good thing about not keeping secrets. I get to share every little step of this incredible journey with my family. Including the story of the tacky rugs. Lovie and I will laugh, but in a kind way. I wouldn’t hurt Jack’s feelings for the world, and neither would she.
I can learn to live with the rugs. And the motion sensors. By the time I leave the bathroom, I’m smiling.
Jack’s waiting for me outside the door.
“Are you okay, Cal?”
“Of course. You’re a really thoughtful man, Jack.”
“I try.”
I lace my fingers through his. “Let’s sit on the porch and drink some tea.”
“All right. But first I have one more surprise.”
“Can’t it wait till tomorrow? I really want to get off my feet.”
“It could…but it’s in the kitchen. And it’s a big one. Close your eyes.”
I’m hoping he’s already bought the baby bed. Or the changing table. Maybe both. Our kitchen is big enough to store baby furniture he’s trying to hide as a surprise. As he lifts me into his arms and carries me downstairs and into our old-fashioned kitchen, I’m thinking he’s the most thoughtful man in the world, waiting for me to help him pick out the placement of furniture in the nursery.
Suddenly we come to a halt. “You can open your eyes now…Surprise!”
Holy cow! My kitchen has turned into a prison cell block. There’s black wrought iron everywhere.
I don’t even want to know.
“I didn’t get a chance to put the bars over the windows today, Cal. And it’s going to rain tomorrow. But I promise I can do it by the weekend.”
“Good grief!”
“When I’m out of town, I’ll never have to worry about somebody breaking in on you and the baby.”
“We have an alarm system, Jack.”
“Alarms just tell you somebody is in your house.” He marches over and hefts a depressing amount of metal. “Now this will keep them out.”
Holy cow! I got pregnant and gave birth to a nightmare – an over-protective future dad.
*
I’m stuck in a jail somewhere behind bars and no matter how I scream for help, nobody can hear me. I grip the bars and try to pull them off the windows, but I might as well be trying to single-handedly shove Hannibal’s elephants over the Alps.
I wake up in a panic and sit straight up in bed. Good grief, my hair is glued to my head with sweat and it’s nearly morning and I’m fixing to get caught looking like a before in those beauty makeovers that feature before and after.
Jack doesn’t even stir when I get out of bed. Listen, he can hear a criminal a mile away, but he can sleep through a twelve-car pileup at Mooreville’s one and only intersection or anything else that doesn’t endanger his own. How he knows the difference in his sleep is beyond me. I guess that’s why he constantly intrigues me. He’s filled with mysterious ways and always carries with him the aura of danger.
I tiptoe into the bathroom and make hair repairs in the dark. Then I grab my cell phone and tiptoe downstairs.
Lovie will be up cooking for the breakfast she’s catering today for the Rotary Club. When I get to the kitchen, I come to scree
ching halt. Major mistake. The bars Jack bought look even more threatening in the dark.
I backtrack to the living room and huddle in the corner of the sofa holding my cell phone in one hand and a hand-knit afghan over my head with the other. Thank goodness for speed dial…and the loose knit that keeps me from suffocating. Thank goodness also that my cousin answers on the first ring. I don’t even bother with the niceties.
“Lovie, I’ve got a problem.”
“I’ll say. You sound like you’re trapped in the bottom of a well. Where are you? I can barely hear you.”
When I tell her about being hunkered under the afghan…and why…and she starts laughing and won’t shut up.
“Holy cow, Lovie! It’s not funny. The next thing I know, I’ll have a body guard watching over me twenty-four/seven.”
“That’s typical of Jack where you’re concerned.”
“I know! And it’s driving me crazy. All this stress can’t be good for little Jackie Nell.”
Lovie says some words I’m glad my innocent fetus can’t hear. Still, I muffle my womb with the corner of the afghan, just in case.
“What’s that all about, Lovie?”
“I thought you’d name her for me.”
“Good grief. What if it’s a boy? Can we just focus on the problem here, Lovie? What on earth am I going to do about Jack?”
“Just a minute.” I hear her footsteps on the linoleum and then the sound of pans rattling. “The biscuits were about to burn.”
“I know I called you at a bad time, but this is an emergency.”
“Wait just a minute.”
Lovie’s gone again. What now?
She’s stays away for so long I have to pop my head up from the covers and fan with a parenting magazine that features an adorable black-eyed baby girl on the cover. If she had black hair like Jack she’d be a dead ringer for Jackie Nell. Or at least, the baby girl of my imagination.
There’s a sound upstairs that makes me jump ten feet. What if I’d fallen off the sofa? I clutch my womb and whisper, “I’m sorry, Jackie Nell. But what if your daddy’s up?
How will I explain calling Lovie at the crack of dawn? And in hiding, too boot?”
Thank goodness it’s only Elvis, his tail wagging as he doggie dances down the stairs and across the living room. He jumps onto the sofa with me, close enough to pet but not so close he’s leaning against Jackie Nell. Otherwise known as my flat womb. I’ll be glad when I start showing.
“Callie?” Lovie’s back. “That was Aunt Ruby Nell and Fayrene at the door. They want me to cater the baby announcement party.”
“That’s not happening.”
“They’ve already sent out invitations.”
“Good grief. They just started planning it yesterday!”
“They move fast,” Lovie says, and I hear Mama hollering in the background, “I have to hustle to get ahead of you!”
My immediate future spins in front of me like a bad B movie: Me, going into premature labor over Mama’s crazy schemes and Jack’s do-it-yourself protection methods; and Jack, tools in hand, turning our pretty little cottage into a fortress. The next thing I know he’ll be bringing home razor wire to tack atop of the tasteful clapboard fence around our property.
There are new sounds coming from upstairs, definitely my husband getting out of bed. When he finds me gone, he’s liable to come down the stairs armed with more weapons than the U.S. Marines.
“Lovie, I can just see me behind bars in my own home and Jack fending off a million nosey questions at Mama’s ill-timed announcement party. I need a solution. Quick!”
“I’ll call Daddy.”
“Perfect. Thanks.”
Uncle Charlie will know what to do. He always does. And though Lovie doesn’t have a clue how her daddy made his living before he became director of the best funeral home in northeast Mississippi, the solution is likely to involve the Company, where he once did undercover work as an agent. Uncle Charlie only told me about his stint in the secret crime-fighting agency some time back as a last-ditch effort to keep me from giving up all hope of patching my marriage with Jack.
I send him a quick text to say I don’t want Jack in danger, and then I jerk the afghan off my head and settle into the corner of the sofa, all innocent-like, as Jack comes down the stairs. Armed, of course.
“Hello there.” I make my voice as sweet as pie, and Jack’s smile of relief sets me to wondering if pregnancy has turned me into an actress. One who’s becoming an expert at little white lies. I hope little white lies don’t count against you the same as whoppers when you get to the Pearly Gates.
“What are you doing down here, Cal?”
“I couldn’t sleep.” I congratulate myself that I’ve told the truth. At least, the part I’m willing to tell. Anyhow, I’m paying for my sins. I’m so hot under this knitted cover I’m melting like the Portage Glacier in a heat wave.
“Poor baby.” Jack prides himself on assessing a situation with one glance. “You must be freezing.” In spite of the fact that it’s the middle of July, he goes to the antique armoire in the hall and comes back with a blanket. He spends considerable time wrapping it around me like a cocoon. It’s a wonder Jackie Nell’s not roasting in there. “I guess pregnancy makes women cold.”
“I guess.” I’m not about to point out you can’t analyze pregnant women using the same tactics you would with criminals. Though, I’ll have to say I’ve been feeling a few criminal urges lately. Like driving to Tupelo at midnight and kidnapping the manager of Baskin Robbins so he’ll open up and make me an ice cream sundae with a double dip of pecan praline plus a hot caramel and whipped cream topping.
I’m learning fast that I’m now in a category all unto myself.
Jack kisses me on the cheek as if something more will harm the baby, and then he races off, a man on a mission if I ever saw one. I don’t even want to know. As soon as he comes back I’m going to have to tell him being pregnant didn’t break my pucker power.
He clatters around upstairs then races back down and toward the kitchen where he proceeds to do no telling what all. Judging from the racket, he’s moving that awful wrought iron railing out of his way.
He comes back with a hot water battle under his arm and carrying a tray with a glass of milk and…a pair of fuzzy socks!
“Warm milk!” Jack makes this announcement as if he’s just invented a cure for breast cancer. Then he proceeds to hand me the glass and burrow under all my blankets to tug the socks onto my already over-heated feet.
When he emerges he has sweat running down his face and is wearing the most endearing little self-satisfied grin.
“Do you want me to turn off the air conditioner, Cal? I can even turn on the heat.”
Holy cow!
“No!” He looks so crestfallen I don’t even try to stifle my giggles. “I’m sorry, Jack, it’s just…”
“I know. Hormones. It looks cute on you.” When he pats the top of my head I feel a mean-spirited urge to yell, Pregnancy didn’t steal my libido! And I’m never mean. “You just sit there and relax while I work.”
“What kind of work?” Jack never brings his work with the Company home.
“It’s a surprise.”
Any more surprises, combined with my newly discovered ability to go into a snit at the least little thing, and I’m likely to throw a full-blown hissy fit. Jack walks out the door and I leap off the couch to see him striding down the porch steps toward his car. He rummages around in the trunk, emerges with a cave-man-in-charge look and heads this way.
I leap back under my covers and compose myself just in the nick of time. His arms are loaded and his tool belt has enough tools to build the Taj Mahal.
“Smoke alarms!” He announces.
“But Jack, I thought we already had a smoke alarm.”
“I’m putting one in every room. Can’t risk my wife and baby getting trapped in a fire.”
Good grief. The next thing I know he’s going to be installing a fireman’s po
le so I can slide down from the top floor and save myself and the baby from fire-ravaged stairs.
He’s standing there with this expectant look I know so well. He’s always been my hero and I’ve always been quick to lavish him with praise and other rewards I’m too modest to talk about. Not this time. I’m so hot and hormonal all I can manage is an unconvincing, “That’s nice.”
Thank goodness his cell phone rings.
“Charlie,” he says then walks onto the front porch to take the call. And probably to cool off. Who knew having a pregnant wife would turn into such hot business? Jack’s re-writing the book on impending fatherhood.
He leaves just in the nick of time. Another five minutes and I’d be dead from heat prostration. I fling off the covers, jerk off the socks and march into the kitchen to pour the warm milk down the drain. Then I lean my head under the cold water faucet to cool off. And I don’t care who sees me with my head in the sink and my hair dripping wet.
I’m going to have to rethink my strategy for dealing with an overwrought father-to-be. Little white lies aren’t working and crime doesn’t pay.
Chapter 3
Elvis’ Opinion on Parties, Gardens and Old Bones
If Charlie hadn’t saved the day and tipped off the Company to send my human daddy on a wild goose chase where he’s more likely to die from boredom than a bullet, I’d be singing “What Now, What Next and Where To.” As Charlie says, “All’s well that ends well.” He’s very fond of Shakespeare, and I’ll have to say the old Bard can turn a phrase nearly as well as Ruby Nell.
Speaking of the outrageous, Callie’s mama is down on the farm putting the finishing touches on her baby announcement party, and I’m cooling it in Lovie’s kitchen over in Tupelo while she dishes out finger food for the party and listens to my human mom tell about Jack’s smoke alarms and wrought iron.
Callie tops off her story with a question I’ve heard her ask her cousin a million times. And vice versa.
“What am I going to do?”
Cousin Lovie says a word few women would be brave enough to use and Callie covers her belly with a dish towel.
“Watch your language. Little Jackie Nell can hear every word.”