She said, “Sis, I figured you wouldn’t have time to shop for a best-man’s dress, so I took it upon myself to whip one up for you. Hope you don’t mind.”
I was stunned and burst into tears. Those tears earned me a wonderful vanilla-pillow hug and a pair of mint green pumps to match my dress.
Then Mamie said, “Let’s get a move on, girls. We’ve got a wedding to go to!”
When we walked into the living room looking like Audrey Hepburn and her elegant sidekick, Percy and the minister were waiting for us. Percy beamed when he saw us and handed us each a wrist corsage of white carnations. And Percy looked so handsome in his shirt and tie with his long blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail. I was so accustomed to seeing him in jeans with his long hair hanging in his eyes—just the way The Colonel hated it.
While Vickie and I were getting dressed, Mamie had gotten her children, Eric and Anna, into their wheelchairs and had brought them into the living room so they could be a part of the wedding. Vickie crouched down and kissed them both and introduced them to Percy and me. They were such sweet children, both of them stretching their arms to hug us.
The wedding ceremony was short and sweet, and the entire time the minister was talking and Vickie and Percy were saying their vows, Eric and Anna were clapping and laughing—and no one tried to stop them. I decided that all wedding guests should be encouraged to laugh and clap throughout the ceremony. It would make the bride and groom feel as though they were doing something really special and that they were getting lots of encouragement and support.
Once the ceremony ended, Mamie led us into her little dining room for the wedding reception. She had beautiful antique flowered bowls and plates full of finger sandwiches, dainty little cakes, fruit, nuts, and mints. And she had a big bowl of yummy, frothy punch. We sat around in our pretty clothes, eating Mamie’s pretty food, talking about how perfect the wedding had been.
We ate and chatted until Eric and Anna became tired, and Mamie needed to tend to them. We changed back into our jeans, ready to return to town—but not before we had warm hugs all around.
When we reached town, Percy and Vickie went back to their life up over the garage, and I set off on my bike for home.
Percy and Vickie’s wedding day remains one of the few perfect days of my life.
Eighteen
Suzanne and Mary Sue showed up at school one morning with mouths full of braces. When I acted surprised, they said, “Oh, we thought we’d told you we were going to get our braces yesterday afternoon.”
Well, no, they hadn’t—thus the surprise. And I was furious, but I had absolutely no idea why. Their mouths were bulging with wire, making their lips pooch out like fish lips. They were smiling these huge, shining smiles. Of course, we were all master smilers since smiling is a requirement for cheerleaders. But these were more than cheerleader smiles. These were I’m-cooler-than-you-are smiles. And they were talking orthodontic-speak, while staring into each other’s mouths.
They lisped and spat all over me when they said, “Oh, mah gawd, it hurt like hell when he tightened the bands,” and “I’ve only got two rubber bands; I wonder why you have four,” and “My rubber bands go from front to back; yours go from back to front,” and “I can’t believe we can’t eat Sugar Daddys for three whole years!”
I had never seen either of them eat a Sugar Daddy. I figured they’d survive the loss. But I knew I would never survive being braceless while my two best friends had beautiful, shiny mouths full of metal. I wanted to lisp and spit and have poochy lips. But I had perfect teeth—blindingly white, straight, and as big and uniform as Chiclets. Chances of my getting braces were pretty slim. But it was worth a try.
After supper that night, I hung around the kitchen while Ma’am loaded the dishwasher, waiting for everyone else to leave.
Once we were alone, I said, “Ma’am, can I get braces?”
Turning from the dishwasher, she looked down at my legs and said, “Why, Dear, are you having trouble walking?”
I told her, “No, not braces for my legs, braces for my teeth.”
When I said that, Ma’am looked at me as if I were speaking Sanskrit. Then she said, “Dear, have you taken leave of your senses? Braces on your perfect teeth?” She shook her head as if to extricate my idiotic request from her brain and returned to loading the dishwasher.
I knew my request was dead in the water. There was no use pursuing it because there was no maybe or we’ll see or perhaps in that statement. There was only a hell, no!
I pouted around for a few days, but no one seemed to notice or care. I finally just gave up and became resigned to a life of perfect teeth.
And as if being denied braces weren’t bad enough, Colonel Tom forbade my dating until I was sixteen years old. All of my friends started dating at fourteen, but Colonel Tom put his foot down and refused to budge. Ma’am tried to reason with him, but he gave her one of his if-you-don’t-want-to-get-clumsy-you’d-better-shut-up looks. Immediately Ma’am abandoned my cause and was in complete agreement with The Colonel. And that was that. For two years I sat home on weekends while my friends were going to movies and necking in back seats of cars, locking braces with their boyfriends.
Percy was so dear to me for those two years. When he wasn’t out charming women, he’d let me tag along with him and his friends. Colonel Tom didn’t trust Percy as far as he could throw him, but he knew, without a doubt, that Percy would never do anything to hurt me or allow me to get into trouble. Sometimes we’d go to the drive-in movie and eat pizza from the concession stand while we watched the movie from the car. Or we’d go to Buddy and Sonny’s drive-in for hot dogs and Cokes. Sometimes we’d just cruise Buddy and Sonny’s—that’s drive around and around and around—to see and be seen. Percy would even take me inside and dance with me. It wasn’t the same as having a date, but I loved Percy for his kindness.
The day I turned sixteen, Jeremy Cole showed up at my door. Jeremy was the president of our class and, except for my cousin Celeste, was the funniest person I had ever known. Actually, he was about the funniest person anybody had ever known. Jeremy had made me laugh so hard at times that I had peed my pants. In fact, Jeremy measured his comedic success by the number of wet pants he’d caused. Jeremy was also very handsome and a great dancer. And there he stood on my doorstep.
The first words out of his mouth were: “Happy birthday! I’ve waited two years for this.”
I just stared at him with my mouth open and a what-in-the-hell-are-you-talking-about? look on my face.
When he realized I wasn’t going to say anything, he continued: “I knew that you couldn’t date until you were sixteen, so for the past two years I’ve been counting down the days till your sixteenth birthday.”
Still I just stood there with my mouth hanging open.
Jeremy reached over and with his thumb on my chin and his middle finger on my nose, he shut my mouth and said, “For your birthday, may I treat you to a movie?”
And Jeremy Cole became my first love.
Jeremy was everything a first love should be: attentive, polite, funny, witty, a great dancer, and a yummy kisser. Did I mention that he was drop-dead gorgeous?
We’d been dating a while when he told me that one reason he wanted to date me was because I was the only cute girl he knew who didn’t have a mouth full of metal. And he said he’d be afraid to kiss a girl with braces, for fear of being lacerated.
And Colonel Tom approved of him. Jeremy lived just two blocks from our house, and his dad was an attorney at a local firm. The Colonel welcomed Jeremy into our family, and pretty soon he became a fixture around our house.
Colonel Tom trusted Jeremy so much that he allowed us to study together in my bedroom. We’d study a little, make out a little, study a little. Hey! I was liking this dating stuff. I took to it like I’d been doing it all my life.
Jeremy and I shared a lot of interests, but our greatest shared passion was our love for Ray Charles. We loved Ray Charles! And we were dying to see Ra
y Charles perform. He was going to be at the Coliseum, and the concert was completely sold out—except for the thirty pairs of tickets our local radio station was giving away. Each afternoon for a month DJ Roy gave a pair of Ray Charles concert tickets to the seventh caller. Every afternoon we’d try to win a pair, and every afternoon we’d be the sixth or eighth or fifth caller—but never seventh. But we refused to give up.
The last Saturday before the concert, Jeremy and his best friend, Todd, were working on a school project at Jeremy’s house, so I was at home alone, reading a movie magazine and listening to the Top 40. For the twenty-fifth time DJ Roy said he was giving away a pair of Ray Charles tickets to the seventh caller, and for the twenty-fifth time I tried to be the seventh caller.
When DJ Roy answered the phone and said, “Congratulations! You’re caller number seven,” I nearly hung up out of habit.
As soon as I stopped screaming and gave DJ Roy my name, I took off for Jeremy’s house to tell him that we were going to see Ray Charles. I sprinted the two blocks and flew through his front door without even knocking.
I took the steps two at a time and threw open Jeremy’s bedroom door, planning to sing
Oh, you don’t know the one
Who dreams of you at night,
Who longs to kiss your lips,
Who longs to hold you tight…
But I got only as far as Oh, you don’t know the one before I stopped and gasped. There stood Jeremy and Todd with their arms around each other, and they were kissing. When they saw me, Todd ran from the room, down the stairs, and out the front door.
He left Jeremy standing there, screaming, “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,”
While I screamed, “Oh no, oh no, oh no!”
I followed Todd’s path down the stairs and out the front door, and I didn’t stop running until I was face down on my bed, sobbing hysterically. I didn’t realize until seconds later that Jeremy was hot on my heels. When he reached me, he fell on his knees by the bed, burying his face in my bedspread and bawling.
Through his sobs I heard him saying, “Oh, please, oh, please, I love you, I’m so sorry, wouldn’t hurt you, it’s awful, can’t take it back…”
I wouldn’t look at him.
When he stopped to take a breath, I said, “Go away. I don’t want to see you anymore.”
He tried to protest, but all I would say was, “Go!”
Once Jeremy had left, I cried and cried till I had nothing left in me. I eased myself off the bed, went into the bathroom, and splashed cold water in my face. I glanced into the mirror and saw that I looked like shit. My face was splotchy, my nose was running, and my eyes were bloodshot and swollen.
I knew of only one thing to do: I covered my puffy eyes with my sunglasses, headed for my bike, and pedaled over to see Percy at the bike shop. He was the only person I could tell this horrible story to, and I knew that sweet Mr. Peterson, so accustomed to my tearful visits, would let Percy comfort me during business hours.
When Percy saw me coming, he dropped his grease rag and headed toward me. Realizing my condition, he told Mr. Peterson that he was going to take his break and would be back shortly. He stood my bike against the back wall of the shop, took my arm, and led me out to the bench behind the shop.
Once we were seated, he grabbed my hands and said, “Okay, what did Colonel Shithead do this time?”
I explained to him that, even though my tears were usually caused by The Colonel, these particular tears had nothing to do with him. Then I told him what I had witnessed. I was waiting for the shock to come, but it never did. Percy just leveled his gaze on me without registering any emotion.
I screamed, “You knew, didn’t you?”
All he said was “Yes.”
I said, “But why didn’t you tell me?”
He answered, “Sis, why would I do that? Ya’ll were happy, and I figured he wasn’t gonna try to get in your pants like some other dickhead guys. He may not be your dream date, but don’t write off his friendship, Sis. He’s a really nice guy.”
And all the while I was thinking, “Percy, how can you make such stupid decisions for yourself and then make so much sense when it comes to helping me?”
I said, “That’s not what I expected to hear, but I’ll give it some thought. You have to get back to work, and I need to go home. Ma’am doesn’t know where I am, and you know how she worries about her children.”
And that made us laugh for the first time that day.
Nineteen
It was August and hot as hell. I was filling my beach bag to go to the river with Suzanne and Mary Sue when the phone rang.
As I answered it, Percy said from the other end of the line, “Act natural,” which is code for “I’m going to tell you something that I don’t want Ma’am and The Colonel to know.”
So I nonchalantly said, “Oh, hey.”
He said, “Don’t register any emotion when I tell you that we are headed to the hospital. The baby is on the way.”
I said, “Yeah, I guess I can go to the movie tonight. What do y’all want to see?”
Percy replied, “Damn, you’re good. You can tell we’ve done this a lot! The doctor says we probably won’t know anything till late afternoon. I’ll call you then.”
“Okay,” I said. “When you find out what’s playing, just give me a call. I’m going to the river now; I’ll be home around three.”
As I hung up the phone, I could feel my heart beating in my throat and my face flushing. The Colonel was reading the paper and Ma’am was busy mixing Bloody Marys, so I probably could have passed out from excitement and they wouldn’t have noticed.
I took my beach towel out of the dryer, dropped my Coppertone and sunglasses in my bag, and told Ma’am and The Colonel that I was leaving for the river. They mumbled some syllable at me and didn’t even look up from what they were doing.
I could have said, “Percy just called to say that he and Vickie are on their way to the hospital to have a baby,” and Ma’am and The Colonel probably would have mumbled some syllable at me and gone on about their business, oblivious to what I had said to them.
The day seemed an eternity. When three o’clock finally arrived, I pedaled home to wait for Percy’s call. I sat in front of the TV, pretending to watch cartoons with Oops, except I really had my eye on the clock. At 5:15 the phone rang.
I calmly said, “Oh, I’ll get that. That’ll be Percy. He says he wants us to go to a movie tonight.”
I was shaking when I picked up the phone and said, “Hello.”
Percy said, “I’m coming to get you. It’s time you met your new niece.”
I said, “Oh, okay, if that’s what you want to see.”
I hung up the phone, took a deep breath, and said, “Percy’s coming to get me. He and Vickie and I are going over to Buddy and Sonny’s and then to the Strand to the movie.”
Ma’am and Colonel Tom were into the mint julep phase of the day, so, once again, I probably could have said, “Percy is coming to get me so I can go to the hospital and meet your grandchild,” and I still wouldn’t have gotten a rise out of them.
I was hopping up and down on the curb when Percy finally pulled up in front of me.
I said, “Good god, Percy, I thought you’d never get here. Hurry! I can’t wait to see her.”
I wanted to know all of the details, but he said he was saving everything till we were at the hospital. He did tell me, though, that his little girl was perfectly beautiful and that Vickie was feeling great.
When we arrived at the hospital, there was a parking spot right at the front door. That’s always a good sign of wonderful things to come. We hopped out of the car, sprinted down the hospital corridor, and entered Vickie’s room to find her cradling their little girl in her arms.
And Percy had been right: his daughter was absolutely beautiful. She had rosy cheeks, a cap of wavy red hair, and a mouth the size and shape of a Cheerio. My eyes filled with tears as I stared at her.
Percy took her f
rom Vickie and said to me, “Sit down, and you can hold her.”
When I was seated in the chair, Percy laid his daughter in my arms and said, “Lydia McChesney Albemarle, I want you to meet your aunt, Lydia McChesney Albemarle.”
I looked up at Percy and Vickie, and Vickie said, “It’s the only name we considered. She’s lucky she’s a girl.”
Percy added, “She will never be called Baby Girl or Dear or Sis or even Lyddy. She will be called Lydia.”
The tears that were puddling in my eyes spilled over and ran down my cheeks. And as I cradled by namesake, her flailing fist found my finger and latched on tight.
Twenty
Ma’am was very standoffish with her grandchild, just as she had been with her children. She’d sit across the room from her, smile her sweet smile, and say, “Isn’t she cute?” as if she were watching her on the television.
Colonel Tom, on the other hand, was a major hands-on grandparent. He was so taken with Lydia, you’d have thought he had given birth to her. He loved bathing and feeding her and thought nothing of changing poopy diapers. And since her name was Lydia McChesney Albemarle, The Colonel thought that she needed to be called Mac. Vickie, however, thought differently.
She told him, “Mr. Albemarle,”—she still refused to call him Colonel Tom—“our child’s name is Lydia, and we insist that she be called Lydia—not Booger or Punkin’ or Peanut, not even Mac.”
The Colonel protested, saying that he had a right to call his granddaughter anything he goddamn-well pleased.
Vickie overlooked the profanity—for now—but she said, “No, you do not. You got to decide what your children were to be called. Lydia is our child. Percy and I get to decide what she will be called—by everyone. And she will be called Lydia by everyone. Case closed.”
Colonel Tom mumbled and grumbled, and every once in a while you could hear a “shit” or a “goddamn.” Even though he didn’t have the upper hand in this situation and he wasn’t going to get his way this time, I think he really liked Vickie and admired her for standing up to him.
Getting the Important Things Right Page 9