by Various
“Men,” I explained in my most comforting voice, “sometimes get the craziest notions. He’ll come to his senses pretty quick, I’m sure.” I wasn’t sure at all, but it was the best I could offer in the way of reassurance on such short notice.
It occurred to me that we frequently speak in platitudes. “Oh, he’ll come to his senses.” And they never do. Or, “I declare, that’s the prettiest baby I ever saw.” We say that even if the infant in question would draw a blister on an outhouse from a hundred yards away. “Brides are always beautiful, aren’t they?” We have lots of those, none of which are true most of the time, but we say them anyway.
Everything seemed to be going smoothly, up to that point. Keep uttering those tried and true phrases, I told myself. “He’s just going through a mid-life crises. Tell him to buy himself a new truck and he’ll get over it.”
And then Junior arrived—with his arm draped around a girl half his age. I knew immediately that I was looking at Bobbi Sue. The new girlfriend. Blonde and beautiful, clad in a black sheath skirt and spaghetti strap halter that boasted only a string tie at the neck and waist in the back, she looked like the latest cover girl for Cosmo. I’d been expecting somebody who might grace the cover of a magazine like Tractor Backing Gazette. My words to wife number two (or three, I don’t remember which) just floated there in the air between us like the smell of a dead skunk on a hot summer night. I met her embarrassed gaze and shrugged. What else could I do?
The sweet expression on Junior’s present wife’s face changed from apple dumpling sweet to green persimmon bile. A nasty little thought entered my mind. I could imagine one of these women whipping out a gun and opening fire on the other ex-wives or present wives. Stranger things have happened. I excused myself, muttering that there were people I hadn’t yet talked to, and rushed over to Mama who was discussing diaper rash with Jack’s wife.
I hurried Mama and Sis along, not wanting to witness the possible bloodshed. We sped on through the rest of the current wives and ex-wives into the next room. (With great relief.)
The coffin was in that room. Uncle Clete had been married twice. He and Aunt Bett had divorced not long before Great-Granny Tolleson died. He married Aunt Connie a few years later, but they hadn’t been getting along too well, according to Mama. They had been separated and planning to divorce. But the clincher was yet to come. Soap opera writers only wish for material like this, I thought. Uncle Clete had been planning to re-marry Aunt Bett. Confused? I was, but somehow I liked the idea of them getting back together. Of course, now that could never happen.
I’m not too sure that Uncle Clete understood all of that either. He was a man with little formal education, but a world of knowledge from the school of hard knocks and life. He was a man of the land, a man who could coax Blossom into giving an extra quart of milk. His favorite pig, Porcina, had won more ribbons at the state fair than any other in the history of South Carolina. He understood life and enjoyed living it.
But there was that shiny, pale green coffin with Uncle Clete, looking all peaceful and serene, as if he were asleep. Tied to his finger was a string attached to a little bell—a precaution, in the way of a long-standing tradition, in case he wasn’t really dead. I reckon that’s a practice that has fallen out of favor, what with better medical technology these days. We pretty well know for sure a body’s dead nowadays, but that wasn’t always the case.
In years past, when a body was buried, the bell was left above ground for five days—just in case the “deceased” wasn’t really dead. If that was the case, the “deceased” would wiggle his hand and shake the bell. The cemetery attendant would rescue the victim. That little bell reportedly saved several lives over the years.
I always cry at these times and this was no exception. I really loved Uncle Clete. He was so much fun when I was growing up. And here he was, about to be buried. With tears in my eyes, I told stories of how he’d bounced me on his knee when I was a girl, pulled my pony-tail when I was a teenager, and how he’d teased me when I decided to get married.
I went to my Aunt Bett, since I was closer to her than Aunt Connie. I hugged her, shed a few tears with her, and told her everything would turn out all right. She would just have to take each day as it came. I said all the things you say to people whose spouses have passed away. “He looks so natural doesn’t he?”
She smiled, dabbed at the corner of her eye with an embroidered hanky, and nodded. “Looks like he might wake up any minute.”
“He really does,” I said. He really didn’t, though. He’d died of a sudden heart attack and wasn’t found for nearly two days. The thick make-up on his face made him look anything but natural to me.
“You know, he had left that other woman.” Aunt Bett gestured with her head toward the other end of the coffin. “We were planning to remarry.”
And then I noticed something peculiar. Aunt Bett was sitting at Uncle Clete’s head and Aunt Connie was sitting at his feet. And they were glaring at each other with enough venom to kill a prize bull. Guns in those big purses, maybe? Nah. They were too civilized for that.
Aunt Connie’s blanket of red and white carnations lay on the coffin. After all, they weren’t divorced yet, so it was her place to buy the coffin blanket.
Behind Aunt Bett stood a wreath the size of an eighteen-wheeler’s tire. Huge. Humongous. I swear, the President of the United States never placed a wreath so big on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. I stared.
Draped across those yellow and gold football mums was a five-inch wide sash of yellow satin ribbon. Printed in letters of three-inch gold glitter were the words, “I still love you.”
I looked at Aunt Bett and then at Aunt Connie. I knew the reason for the daggers in the air between them. Jealousy over a dead man.
The stare-down escalated as the afternoon wore on. Aunt Connie muttered something about a pretentious and gaudy display. Aunt Bett heard, deliberately reached over and folded the coffin blanket halfway down, and the fight was on.
The verbal barrage began in earnest. At that point, I realized that words might not satisfy either of my aunts. Where is a good platitude when you need one, I asked myself as I backed away from the coffin.
Heads turned; eyes riveted on the two silver-haired women standing at the ends of the coffin yelling at each other over Uncle Clete’s body. Daughters-in-law—former, current, and future—drifted into the parlor to see who was causing the ruckus. They began to take sides and squabble among themselves. I watched, mesmerized, as the shouting rose to a crescendo and evolved into a hollering contest. Glancing at Uncle Clete, I noticed something different about him. He appeared to be frowning. Lines had materialized on his forehead and around his mouth. No, he was definitely scowling. Hadn’t there been a look of peace on his face moments before?
Accusations flew back and forth. The two combatants approached each other like two mongrels circling a bone. A little shoving broke out. I tried to break it up, but got jostled out of the way. There was no stopping this riot now.
I grabbed Mama by the arm and dragged her toward the door. I just knew a shoot-out was about to occur, and I didn’t want to become a witness or a victim. I glanced again at Uncle Clete, knowing that this peace-loving man would hate such a display. Again, his appearance surprised me. The look on Uncle Clete’s face had certainly changed to one of great displeasure. It was a look I’d seen when we’d inadvertently let the dogs into the chicken coop one afternoon.
As we approached the door, the battle reached its zenith. Dour-faced morticians, frantic sons, sobbing daughters, and confused daughters-in-law tried to separate the women who were now swinging freely at each other. But the poor men didn’t fare so well. Aunt Bett slugged the senior funeral director, and Aunt Connie knocked the preacher off his feet with her huge purse.
Mama, Joyce, and I hovered near the door, watching in amazement at the full-scale hysteria sweeping the room. Nobody seemed capable of being just a by-stander—except for us, that is. Not even Uncle Clete. His displeasur
e had escalated to anger.
Just then, a sound brought fists to a stop in mid-air. Quiet rippled across the room until every voice fell silent. The only sound was a vigorously jangling bell.
Aunt Bett swooned in mid-swing, only to be caught by Junior who boasted a fresh black-eye. Aunt Connie’s jaw hung open as she gaped at the coffin and the still-tinkling bell. Mama fainted dead-away. Sis and I helped her to a chair as the other women began to drift apart, shame faced.
We never knew what caused the bell to ring just then. A post-mortem spasm? A combatant bumping against the coffin in the confusion? Perhaps it’s best if we never know. There’s no telling how many wives and ex-wives—not to mention innocent bystanders—might have been killed if Uncle Clete’s bell hadn’t clanged when it did.
Just before the shooting began.
SWEET TEA
By Debra Dixon
Marriage is like buying something you’ve been admiring for a long time in a shop window...you may love it when you get home but it doesn’t always go with everything else in the house.
—Jean Kerr
In the South you grow up steeped in tradition. It’s not that you find the South particularly quaint or interesting. You simply have no choice. By the time Miss Eulayla Overstreet, or her equivalent, places the metronome-from-hell on the family piano, you know four very important things that will shape your life. You know who your people are, where the homeplace is, and that you will never, ever like the piano.
You also know precisely how much sugar to put in a gallon of tea.
True sweet tea is a sublime syrupy DNA test for family identity. You either belong to the syrup subset of Southerners or you belong to the carpetbaggers who moved down from up North. Sweet is sweet, and you can’t cheat. No hostess of any stature would be caught dead sweetening her iced tea at the table.
More than once I’ve asked myself how a modest beverage gained so much power. The simple answer is that sweet tea is the dividing line between us and them. But I didn’t truly understand how sharp that line was until the summer I graduated from college. I invited my fiancé’s parents down South to meet my kinfolks.
To paraphrase a famous Yankee: It was a day that would live in infamy.
#
Five o’clock had come and gone, but I still stood frozen in front of my closet, wondering which outfit would please my mother, fiancé, and my future mother-in-law.
“Shelby! Shelby Lynn! Shelby Lynn Jackson!” The screech reaching up the stairs, through the cracks and crevices of our old house and into my bones was unmistakable.
Aunt Claree.
Aunt Claree was Daddy’s brother’s widow, a blue-haired harridan of impeccable pedigree. The nicest thing I could say about Aunt Claree was that on a sober day, her stare could peel paint off the sides of completely weathered barns. Any hope I had of surviving the evening evaporated.
I closed my eyes and grabbed the first article of clothing I touched. The hem of a bright blue, casual-yet-Sunday-go-to-meeting dress had barely covered my butt on its way down to my knees when Claree stuck her head in.
“Lordamercy, girl. The very idea! Do not be taking all day primping when you know the family’s got company coming. Your poor Mama could use some help down there! It’s not her boyfriend’s family we’re trying to impress, you know.”
I bit my lip. It was either that or ask Aunt Claree why she wasn’t down there helping Mama, especially since she hadn’t been invited to supper. Instead, I stupidly substituted the next thought that crossed my dim-witted brain. “Oh, my goodness. I didn’t know you’d been released!”
The paint-peeling stare was her only reply. Impossibly, the abnormally thin line of her mouth narrowed further. Retribution hovered in the air like the promise of rain after a streak of heat lightning.
I was going to pay for that slip of the tongue. How and when were yet to be determined, but Claree Jackson did not forgive a person for pointing out the truth. Her little visits to the Happy Trails Substance Abuse Center were never discussed using terms like treatment, release or dependency. Oh, no...Aunt Claree visited a spa. Aunt Claree needed some rest to rejuvenate. Aunt Claree went on spiritual retreats.
The simple, unvarnished truth was that Aunt Claree could suck down more alcohol between breakfast and lunch than any three church deacons on a weekend bender.
Without another word, Claree withdrew her head and shut the door firmly. Not so firmly as to be accused of slamming the door, but firmly enough to make her point and put the fear of God in me. Hell hath no fury like Aunt Claree in a snit.
Briefly, I considered calling Ian at the hotel and breaking off our relationship. If I’d thought I had a chance in hell of catching him, I would have given it a shot.
Instead I shoved my feet into a pair of sandals, sprinted down the back stairs to the kitchen, and put my faith in Mama’s ability to run interference with Aunt Claree.
Mama is one of a dying breed—the Southern woman who can simultaneously prepare mass quantities of food, plan a church bazaar, set the table, discipline a grandchild, sew on a missing button, and swat the flies that sneaked inside every time we opened the back door to check Uncle Skeeter’s barbecue technique.
All without breaking a sweat.
Southern women are scary. Even to me, and I grew up exposed to their supernatural powers. All that exposure has made me overly sensitive to the fact that the powers seemed to have skipped a generation in my family. However, I had been given a full-measure of social grace and a fairly well-developed survival instinct. I figured a compliment wouldn’t hurt in an emergency.
I plastered a smile on my face and stepped into a kitchen filled with the aromas of simmering field peas, snap beans, and the lingering scent of baked apples. “Hmm...smells wonderful. What can I do to help?”
Before my compliment had time to find its mark, typhoid Claree sauntered into the kitchen from the direction of the dining room. “We’ve got it under control, sweetie. I wouldn’t want you to ruin that pretty dress. Wherever did you get it? Not in town surely. Sissy Abbott doesn’t sell rayon.”
Rayon.
I looked down and realized I’d grabbed a rayon and poly blend dress out of the closet. Mama would not be happy.
Mama was a Martin by birth, and the Martins had always been staunch supporters of local industry. Nell Martin Jackson considers cotton to be politically correct and morally superior. Nell considers every rayon purchase I make to be a direct act of treason against the delta farmers.
Her daddy had raised cotton and, according to her, when the family lost the homeplace, it was a direct result of Northern industrial textile treachery. Oh, we still called the two thousand acres of bottomland over near the county line our homeplace. Hell, half the county still called it the Martin place. We just didn’t own a piece of paper that said it belonged to us anymore. Even the tiniest reminder made Mama tear up quicker than a baby sucking hot milk.
I smiled lamely, considered torture for Claree, and braced for Mama’s reaction.
She was up to her elbows in flour and chicken pieces. She adhered strictly to the traditional Martin recipe—each piece individually dipped in an egg/milk/seasoning concoction and rolled in flour. Twice. Still, she whipped around, a dripping breast in each hand, and gasped at me. “Oh for heaven’s sake, Shelby! This is not the time to make a statement about your independence. You may not care about the Southern economy, but this is a family event. What will the McClarens think of us if we don’t think enough of ourselves to protect our own heritage?”
In one horrifying moment I realized that the quirks and peculiarities a person acquired growing up Southern would be concentrated around tonight’s supper table. On display like a traveling museum exhibit.
However, now was not the time to tell Mama that I was rapidly coming to believe lunacy was my heritage. Nor was I going to tell her that I’d be happy if the McClarens worst fear of me as a daughter-in-law was my disloyalty to the South. I was suddenly afraid that after tonight the McClar
ens were going to worry about the possibility of mentally defective grandchildren.
A little splinter of guilt at those thoughts lodged itself in my heart. These were my people—Mama, Claree, Uncle Skeeter, my brother Little Will (who was six foot three) and his wife and Tray. Everyone who’d be at the supper table loved me in their own way. Most loved me unconditionally. With the exception of Aunt Claree. Judging from the calculating expression on her face, she felt something unconditional for me at the moment, but I was fairly certain it wasn’t love.
My people.
How could I tell Mama that a rayon dress wasn’t tonight’s problem? Or that I was afraid the McClarens would take one look at my gene pool and go screaming into the night? I couldn’t. So, I lied.
“You know Ian’s mama manages that chain of department stores. This was one of their dresses. They were overstocked, and she had Ian bring me one.”
Mama thought for a minute. She used her forearm to brush a lock of silver-blonde hair out of her face and finally allowed, “Oh. Well. I suppose you had to wear it.”
Claree snorted and reached for the big, rounded and hand-hammered aluminum pitcher we used for tea. “Well then, Nell, you might as well get used to Christmas alone. If Shelby worries so much about that woman’s opinion before she’s even married the son, you can bet she’ll be at the McClaren supper table every holiday after the wedding!”
“Shut up, Claree.” The words were as crisp and final as any I’d ever heard Mama utter to my aunt.
They’d never been the closest of sisters-in-law, not even after Daddy died and they could have bonded in widowhood. At best they’d always had an uneasy truce that recognized Claree’s greater claim to the title of Jackson matriarch by dint of a ten-year age difference. Claree might be ten years older, but Mama didn’t take advice about her kids from women who hadn’t raised their own children.