“He wants to come and work in the States next summer. He’s studying building and architecture and wants to apprentice with Dad,” I tell her.
“Ma, can he come? Please?” Etta lights up like a Roman candle.
“We’ll have to ask your dad. But I don’t see why not.”
Etta sits down and studies the picture. “That’s the famous opera house La Scala,” I tell her.
“I like Italy better than Big Stone.”
“You do?”
“Maybe not better. I love my friends and my school and everything. But I miss our family over there. Like Grandpop. He’s the only grandparent I have.”
“We don’t have a lot of kin around here anymore, do we?”
“Only Aunt Cecilia. And she’s about four hundred years old.”
“Well, your dad was an only child, and I’m an only child—”
“I know, I know, and you got married later in life, and therefore you didn’t have lots of kids like people that get married when they’re young.”
“Who says that?”
“You do. All the time.” Etta smiles. “Is it okay if I keep the picture?” I tell her it’s fine, and she goes up to her room. I suddenly feel like following her and explaining every choice I’ve ever made, how not every one was designed to deprive her of siblings and cousins, noise and competition and long waits for the bathroom, but rather the result of chance or luck or fate that blew through my life, woke me up, and changed my single path to this married one, and then unexpectedly, delightedly, to motherhood. But I am not going to justify my choices tonight. And I certainly can’t explain her brother’s death and the fundamental changes it wrought. I don’t know how to tell a twelve-year-old there are things that happen in this life that have no explanation. I wonder why I am always defending myself to my daughter. When I figure that one out, perhaps I’ll be ready to tackle the big issues with her, including the ones Misty Lassiter has prematurely placed on the front burner of our lives.
The Tuesday lunch special at the Soda Fountain is soup beans and corn bread, so all the regular diehards pile in for the bargain. (We’re doubly busy when the first of the month lands on a Tuesday because the black-lung benefit checks arrive.) I’m stuck in the pharmacy filling meds while Fleeta mans the Soda Fountain. It gets crazy.
“Ave Maria Mulligan MacChesney, I’m a-goin’ to Florida, and don’t try and stop me!” Spec announces from the door.
“You’re going on vacation?”
“Yup. Surprised?”
“Very. You’ve never had one.”
“No, only if you count when me and Leola take the kids to the lake. But we ain’t never left the state. I figger after forty-seven years, my wife deserves a sandy beach and a mai tai. What do you think?”
“I think it’s fantastic. When are you going?”
“Thanksgiving. First off, we’re gonna drive down and spend six days at Disney World, then we’re gonna hit Sarasota—she got her a cousin down there—and then we’ll circle back up the coast of the Sunshine State and come on home.”
Fleeta hollers from the Soda Fountain. “Spec, stop jackin’ your jaw. I ain’t holdin’ this seat of yorn no longer, I got me a wait list over here.” Spec never misses a lunch special, so he motions to Fleeta that he’s on his way.
Iva Lou greets me from the door (I guess everybody in town has a yen for soup beans today). “I had to double-park behind your Jeep, it’s so crowded,” she says as she places her purse on the counter.
“No problem. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Need a hand?”
“You can do labels if you want.” I give Iva Lou the labels run off the computer. She adheres them to the prescription bags as I load the sacks.
“I hired Serena Mumpower out of Appalachia to be my assistant at the library. Top of her class at Mountain Empire.”
“How’s that working out?”
“She’s on the phone constantly. Most popular girl in the county, I believe.”
“She’s pretty.”
“Ain’t nobody that pretty.”
“You’ll have to have a talk with her.”
“I guess. I don’t want her to use the Slemp Library as Dial-A-Date.”
“Feel like running over to Appalachia later?”
“Sure. What do you need?”
I whisper, “Etta needs a—a bra. I thought we’d go to Dave’s.”
“I wouldn’t miss it. Etta’s first bra? Nothing like a bra to define a figger and emphasize a waistline. I can’t believe it. Etta is a young woman who needs support! This is my favorite feminine rite of passage. Well, maybe my favorite was hittin’ the hair dye for the first time. I was fourteen when I got yeller streaks in my hair, did ’em myself with peroxide. Big chunky streaks like Tammy Wynette on her greatest-hits album. That’s when I discovered that not only do blondes have more fun, they have all the fun.”
“We’re going for utilitarian here, not Wonderbra,” I remind Iva Lou.
“Well, if you want plain industrial bras, why don’t you just cross the street over to Zackie’s and get ’em in a box? Mike’s has training bras too, and they’re just across the way.”
“Etta doesn’t want to shop in town. She’s a little sensitive about the whole thing. She tried to convince me to go to Kingsport, but I don’t have time.”
“I’ll wear my darkest sunglasses and a Lana Turner scarf so nobody recognizes us.”
“Don’t laugh. I think Etta would like that.”
Iva Lou and I have worked out a routine to make Etta’s first bra-shopping expedition casual. Iva Lou is going to buy a pair of boots; I’m going to look at a skirt set that’s on sale; and buried in a list of things that Etta needs is her first bra. I called Julia Isaac, who owns the place, ahead of time. She laughed, as she’s been down this road with every girl in Appalachia.
Dave’s Department Store has been around for years and carries a variety of clothes, from miner’s overalls to chiffon mother-of-the-bride dresses that Julia picks up on buying trips to New York. The juniors’ section is more hip and, for our area, fairly cutting-edge. Etta skims past the bras on their small plastic hangers and goes to look at shoes. Iva Lou and I look at each other. “I know what to do,” Iva Lou whispers.
I watch Iva Lou as she fawns all over a pair of loafers Etta likes. As Etta tries them on, Iva Lou tries on her boots, and then they place both pairs on the checkout counter. Iva Lou leads Etta over to the accessories, showing her a small purse that clips on a belt and matches the loafers. Then Iva Lou stacks several packages of panty hose by her boots. The checkout counter is filling up. Iva Lou stops and admires a lace bra on her way to the juniors’ section and makes Etta look at it. It’s too mature for Etta, but I don’t interrupt; I’m hoping Etta will choose a more appropriate style. She does. She takes a sporty bra off the rack and shows Iva Lou, who guesses Etta’s size and hands her several in that range. Then Iva Lou takes the lacy one to try on herself; Etta goes behind one changing curtain, Iva Lou behind another. Lord love her, Iva Lou is making this fun. My friend is the most natural mother in the world and has never raised a child.
“Ma, I’m done,” Etta hollers to me from the checkout desk.
“Where’s Aunt Iva Lou?”
“She’s still trying things on.”
I look down at Etta’s stack of items as Julia rings them up. Three tasteful cotton bras with a piqué trim are hiding under the T-shirts Etta wanted.
“Iva Lou?” I say through the curtain of the dressing area. She doesn’t answer. “Are you in there?” She still does not respond. I look around the store. It’s empty, near closing time. “Iva?” I ask again. I peek through the curtain. Iva Lou is inside, sitting on the bench with her head in her hands.
“What’s wrong?” I ask her.
“I’m just draggin’, honey-o.” Iva Lou looks up at me. Under the fluorescent lights, I see through her makeup that she is exhausted.
“I’m sorry. Did Etta wear you out?”
“No, i
t’s not the shopping. I’m tarred all the time.”
“What do you mean, all the time?”
“Around five o’clock every day, I just need to set down and rest.”
“Have you been to the doctor?”
“Doc Daugherty said it’s gettin’ older. That I need to slow down. The usual BS.”
“Oh, please.”
“What else could it be?”
“A million things.” I sit down on the floor next to her. “You may have an insulin problem.”
“I don’t have the sugar.”
“Could be you’re vitamin-deficient.”
“That could be, ’cause I never do take no pills.”
“We can get you over to Holston Valley Hospital for them to do a complete workup on you.”
Iva Lou stands. She doesn’t argue, which tells me that she’s hurting.
“We’ll get to the bottom of this, okay?” I reassure her. She pats me on the shoulder, then breathes deeply, peels back the curtain, and walks to the checkout.
“You girls can do some shopping.” Jack looks up from watching the news.
“We needed everything we bought. Right, Etta?”
“Yep.” Etta takes her shopping bags and goes upstairs.
“I’ll bet,” Jack says, going back to his program. The phone rings. Jack doesn’t make a move for it (he never does), so I pick up in the hallway.
“Ave?”
The familiar voice sends a surge through me. “Pete?”
“How are you?” he says in a tone that makes me feel like I need to sit down.
“I’m doing fine,” I tell him. Pete Rutledge has gone from my Italian Summer Crush (okay, old crush, it’s been five years since I romped with him in a field of bluebells above Schilpario in the Italian Alps) to family friend.
“Me too. How’s Etta?”
“Growing up fast.”
“Uh-oh.”
“Yeah, she’ll be thirteen next April.”
“I’m sure you can handle the changes.”
“I’m trying.”
“Is Jack around?”
“Sure, let me get him.”
I call Jack, who smiles and comes to the phone when he hears that it’s Pete. When I first met Pete, he was in Italy looking for marble; he’s an importer from New Jersey. Actually, he recently added guest professor at NYU to his résumé—there aren’t many marble experts in the world. In the time since that tumultuous summer, he’s become friendly with my father and Giacomina and still visits them every time he goes to Italy on buying trips. Jack often uses marble on his jobs now, so he buys it from Pete. Their business relationship eventually turned into a friendship, which gave me the creeps at first but now is completely natural. I never realized until I got married how hard it is for men to make good male friends. Most men just have a pleasant, jocular relationship with one another; they don’t get emotional or seek advice, something that comes so naturally to me and my women friends. So, even though sharing Pete Rutledge with Jack Mac is strange, I’m actually happy that my husband has made a friend.
I hear Jack hang up the phone. He comes into the kitchen and puts his arms around me as I bread chicken cutlets at the stove.
“What’d Pete want?”
“We’re redoing the foyer at the Black Diamond Savings Bank up in Norton, so I need some marble. He said you should be sure to call him when you and Etta go to New York.”
Jack goes and washes up for dinner, and I break into a sweat. Nothing happened with Pete, I remind myself, except that I was tempted. And, of course, I always offset my temptation with the fact that Jack was back here getting chummy with Karen Bell, a lumber-supply saleswoman from Coeburn. (Jack buys his lumber locally now. It’s a little unspoken agreement we have.) These trials didn’t sink us—in fact, they helped our marriage. We looked hard at our relationship and began to resolve our differences. If Karen Bell and Pete Rutledge hadn’t come along, I don’t think Jack and I would still be together. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to send Karen Bell a thank-you note for her trouble, but in retrospect, I see that she did me a favor.
“Ma?” Etta interrupts my thoughts.
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for the clothes.” Etta sees the table isn’t set, so she goes about gathering plates and silverware.
“That was fun.”
“Yeah, it was fun,” Etta agrees.
I turn around and look at her. “Did you try it on?”
“I have it on,” Etta says, adjusting her bra strap through her T-shirt.
“What do you think?”
Etta shrugs. “A bra’s a bra, Ma.”
I laugh. This is so typical of Etta. I go out of my way to make things easy for her, and she doesn’t need me to! She is just like her father, who tackles a problem, finds the solution, and doesn’t dwell on it further. Of course, this makes me look like the great overreactor of all time, since I’m asking for a follow-up report on the shopping trip I planned like a CIA run.
“Come on, Ave. They’s at Zackie’s already. Shake a leg!” Fleeta calls to me from the front doors of the Pharmacy, swinging the doors back and forth to make noise with the chimes in case the hollering didn’t get my attention.
“I’m on my way.”
“Hell’s bells! I hear the snares! Hurry it up!” Fleeta bolts out the door into the street.
A good-size crowd has gathered on Main Street for the Powell Valley High School marching band practice parade and mini-concert on the post office steps, a pre-football-season fall ritual. The kids are fresh from band camp and anxious to show us what they’ve learned.
Leading the parade is Big Stone Gap’s state-of-the-art fire truck, driven by Captain Spec Broadwater (also captain of the Rescue Squad). The wax job on the fire truck is so shiny, it’s hard to look directly at. As Spec goes through the first stoplight, he hits the switch to activate the truck’s flashing red light, which is the band’s cue to pivot right and create a formation on the library steps. Spec has a look of such seriousness on his face, you’d think he was heading into a meeting with General Patton about how to split Berlin. There’s plenty of decoration on top of the truck, though—the cheerleaders are draped on the ladders like fan dancers in a Busby Berkley musical. They wave their Carolina-blue pom-poms, which match the afternoon sky. Spec slows the truck to a full stop, leaving the light flashing for dramatic effect. He lights a cigarette and scans the crowd. When he makes eye contact with shopkeeper Zackie Wakin, he nods solemnly instead of waving. Not far behind, the band, marching to a snare-drum cadence, continues to drain off Main Street in perfect rows that stretch from the post office all the way back to the Dollar General Store.
The band is not in uniform; they are wearing jeans and crisp white T-shirts. The majorettes are in red short shorts and tank tops; evidently there was some coordination between them and the cheerleaders, who are wearing white short shorts and red tank tops. My Etta is one of two banner carriers selected by Kate Benton, the new band director. The banner carriers are always middle-school-age; it encourages the younger kids to see their peers march with the big kids, and it certainly encourages them to try out for the marching band when they reach high school. I have never seen such a focused band. Theodore would be so proud. Of course, on weekends Miss Benton is a sergeant in the National Guard, so she knows her stuff.
Etta’s posture is perfect. She nods to the other banner carrier, little Jean Williams, whose braids are laced with red ribbons and look glamorous against her rich brown skin. Jean nods back solemnly. I resist the urge to wave to them (I don’t want to embarrass them in their official capacity as parade leaders).
As the band falls into formation on the post office steps, the crowd pushes in to watch. The director hands each of the girls a red cellophane hat (the bowler type they give out on New Year’s Eve) while the woodwinds pipe the opening bars of “Puttin’ on the Ritz.” The majorettes use their batons as canes in a Charlie Chaplin dance, but the woodwinds are suddenly drowned out by the fire whistle,
which rings long and loud from across town. The drum major doesn’t know what to do, so he continues to direct the music.
Spec leans his head out of the fire truck. “Everybody off!” he bellows. The cheerleaders look at one another in confusion (nothing like a pack of panicking cheerleaders).
“I said off!” Now the crowd gets into the act, extending arms to help the girls disembark.
“Girls, get off my goddamn truck!” Spec bangs the door with his fist, scaring everyone.
“Calm down, Spec!” Fleeta hollers from the sidewalk. “You’ll give yourself a heart attack!”
The girls climb down off the truck quickly, putting their feet in places they shouldn’t, making sounds that are less than ladylike, yanking at the hardware, grunting as they shimmy over spikes and notches on their way to the ground. Kelly Gembach, the most agile and petite, rappels down the back using the hose as a rope. The rest of the girls hit the ground like a spray of Red Hots. Only solidly built Kerry Necessary, the captain and the base for most of their gymnastic stunts (she also placed first in the all-county girls’ division shot put last year), takes her time sliding down the windshield, creating a big red eclipse for Spec and his buddy Don Wax, who rode shotgun for fun (I’ll bet he’s sorry). Kerry’s sweaty hands leave streaks all over the spotless glass. When she finally comes to a stop, she is on her belly and eye to eye with Spec. The look on his face scares her so badly, she tucks and rolls off the engine to the curb. Her fellow cheerleaders gather around and dust off her shorts.
“Clear the urr-ree-uh!” Spec turns on the siren. The onlookers recoil at the blast, covering their ears, then push back to let Spec through, and he speeds off down the street toward Frog Level, where something is burning.
“That’s a bad omen. Gonna be a shit football season, you’ll see,” Fleeta says under her breath. The drum major cues the band, but the woodwinds, still paralyzed from Spec’s rant, barely have the breath to blow out the opening bars. I look over at Etta, who sees me and shakes her head slowly. This wasn’t the grand start to her band career that we were hoping for.
With Etta back in school, Iva Lou and I are determined not to let anything interfere with our once-a-week lunches. We’ve devised a system where we rotate our lunches between the library (pack your own), Stringer’s (serve yourself, all you can eat), and Bessie’s Diner (the classic burger joint in Appalachia).
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