“How old are you really?” Aunt Bett asked so low that I almost didn’t hear her.
“Ma’am?” Crystal frowned.
“I said how old are you really.” Aunt Bett was still studying the printed figures on the tablecloth, tracing the edges of one with her finger.
“Old enough to be legally married,” Crystal said.
Aunt Bett looked up at Crystal and waited.
“I’m seventeen,” Crystal said, at last.
“You’re just a child,” Aunt Bett stated, her voice gone softer. Because if there was anything Aunt Bett couldn’t resist, it was a child. Any child. Even a child who had no resemblance to any kinfolk of ours.
“Well, yes’m, I guess that’s right.” The screen door to the front porch squeaked open, and Roy-Ellis’s booming voice came rolling into the silent kitchen.
“Whooo-eee! Something sure smells good in here!” And when Roy-Ellis loomed in the kitchen doorway with grease all over his T-shirt and hands, we all looked at him.
“What’s going on?” he grinned.
“Oh, Aunt Bett’s helping me and Dove fix some good pork chops,” Crystal sputtered.
“Good!” Roy-Ellis boomed. “Bett here is the best cook in the world!”
“Crystal will learn, Roy-Ellis. You just give her some time.” Bett’s face was dead serious. “Don’t you be impatient with her,” she warned.
“I won’t,” Roy-Ellis’s voice was just as serious as Aunt Bett’s had been. “I promise.”
“You’ve always been a good man,” she said. Then she must have remembered about his beer-drinking, because she added, “Mostly.”
“Thank you, Bett.”
“Well, I better go,” she said. “In about forty-five minutes, you can take the lid off and let the rest of the liquid steam off a little bit. And heat up that cornbread in the oven.”
We did everything just the way Aunt Bett said, and what a good dinner we had. Even Little Ellis ate everything on his plate and held it out for more. At the last, Roy-Ellis pushed back his chair and patted his stomach.
“That was real good,” he pronounced. “If you all can remember what Aunt Bett said to do, I’ll bring home more pork chops.”
“We can remember,” Crystal said. “And how about bringing home some chicken too?”
Roy-Ellis heaved a sigh. “Tell you the truth, I’m not real crazy about chicken.” He gave a little shudder.
“But I fixed it the other evening, and you liked it!” Crystal’s voice raised up a little. Roy-Ellis studied his fingernails.
“Naw, sugar. I ate it ‘cause I love you.”
“Oh!” Crystal breathed.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled.
“No—don’t be sorry,” Crystal begged. “I just can’t believe that you ate something you didn’t like . . . for me.”
“It’s the trucks,” Roy-Ellis said. And then he corrected himself. “It’s all those chickens in the trucks.” Crystal got up, went around the table, hugged Roy-Ellis’s neck from behind, and kissed the top of his head, like he was a little boy or something. Roy-Ellis’s ears turned red.
“No more chicken,” Crystal murmured into his hair.
I put Molly and Little Ellis down for their naps while Crystal started doing the dishes. When I went back in the kitchen to help her, Roy-Ellis was drying the dishes. Crystal had her hands in the soapy water and was resting her head against Roy-Ellis’s strong arm, and they were laughing together. So I went back to writing on my story about Mama. I was just at the place in her story where Daddy had run off and Roy-Ellis took to coming around. I thought about what Aunt Bett had said about him, and I decided she wouldn’t mind if I used her words. So I wrote, “Roy-Ellis has always been a good man. Mostly.”
After the dishes were done, Roy-Ellis came into the dining room, where I was writing in my notebook. I covered the page with my arm.
“Dove, me and Crystal want to go out this evening. You’ll be okay?”
“Sure,” I said. “You all going dancing?”
“Yep, if you don’t mind staying with Molly and Little Ellis.”
“That’s fine with me,” I said. In a while, I heard the shower start up and then Crystal was giggling again in the bedroom. I liked hearing that. I guess I could have felt resentful, because of Crystal being so young and pretty . . . and full of good health, when my poor little mama was gone, but somehow or other, those feelings just didn’t come. Maybe I was grateful that Roy-Ellis wasn’t going to dump me and Molly off on Aunt Bett and move away with Crystal and his own son, Little Ellis. Whatever the reason, I did like hearing Crystal laugh.
After a while, Roy-Ellis came out of the bedroom wearing his cowboy outfit and smelling like cologne. He went to the mirror in the living room and settled his cowboy hat just right.
“You almost ready, Crystal?”
“In a minute, honey,” she called from the bedroom. And when she came out, I could hardly believe my eyes! Why, she looked just like a little doll. Under her white cowboy hat, her blond hair was a mass of curls that hung down over the shoulders of a little white jacket that was so short, her whole stomach was showing, and her white shorts started just below her belly button and stopped as soon as possible! She had on some kind of silvery tights and was wearing white cowboy boots with tassels on them.
“Do I look okay?” She twirled around. Still, nobody said a thing. I’d almost forgotten Roy-Ellis was even in the room, until I heard his voice, strong and low.
“Honey, you better go change your clothes,” he ordered, and there was something dangerous in his voice. Something I’d never heard in it before.
“What?” Crystal was clearly surprised, and I saw it go all over her. Because she certainly did look so pretty, and I guess she thought Roy-Ellis would be happy with the way she looked.
“I said you better go change your clothes, Crystal. You’re my wife now, and I don’t want you dancing in that outfit.”
“What?” she said again, and I watched the last little bit of that smile just fall right off her face.
“You’re not dancing in that outfit,” Roy-Ellis’s voice was louder.
“What on earth are you talking about? What are you talking about? It’s my job.”
Her job? I was thinking. Crystal’s job is dancing?
“Not anymore.”
“Roy-Ellis, what on earth are you talking about?” She was getting close to tears.
Molly, Little Ellis, and I were looking back and forth from one to the other.
“Roy-Ellis!” she pleaded. “It’s my job!” Then she jutted out her chin and stamped her foot, making the tassels on her boot go to swinging.
“No it isn’t!” Roy-Ellis hollered back at her. We all jumped. “We’ll find you another job. There’s a real nice beauty shop on the back porch. We’ll fix that up for you.”
“No Roy-Ellis! I’m a dancer!” Crystal turned her back on Roy-Ellis.
“Honey, I can’t let you stand up there and dance in front of all those men.” Roy-Ellis explained. Then he added, “And you half naked like that.” He lurched uncertainly across the room and put his hands on her shoulders.
“Don’t cry, sugar,” he begged. “You just go put on those jeans I like so much and that pretty pink blouse of yours, and we’ll go to Across the Line. But both of us will be customers.”
Both be customers? Crystal’s job was being a dancer at Across the Line?
Crystal started whimpering, with Roy-Ellis’s big hands on her little shoulders starting to pat her just a little bit.
“I can’t stand having those men looking at my wife,” Roy-Ellis continued, but somehow, Crystal was beyond his words.
At last, she turned and faced him. “You sh-shoulda told me, Roy-Ellis,” she stammered. “I’m a dancer! You shoulda told me you were gonna make me stop after we got married.”
“But, hon, you can still dance—only not in that outfit and not in front of other men. Go on now and get on some jeans, and then you can dance . . . but only with m
e.” Crystal’s face crumpled, and she ran into the bedroom, slamming the door behind her.
For the first time, Roy-Ellis looked at us.
“She’s gone to change her clothes, I reckon,” he said, uncertainly. And he lifted his cowboy hat carefully off his head, sat down in a chair, and slowly turned the hat around and around, by the brim. We all waited like that for long minutes, and then Roy-Ellis went and knocked on the bedroom door. “You almost ready, sugar?” he called.
“No!” came the angry reply.
“Aw, come on, Crystal,” he pleaded.
“No!”
“Honey, try and understand . . . please?”
“No!” The back of Roy-Ellis’s neck started turning a deep red.
“Crystal?”
“No!”
“Well all right then!” Roy-Ellis shouted, and we all jumped again. “If you won’t come, I’m going alone!” He waited for a moment at the door, and when Crystal said nothing, he stomped back through the living room, settled his hat back on his head, and slammed the front door behind him. We heard his truck start up, and the tires squealed and kicked up gravel as he drove away.
Later, I went to the bedroom door and tapped on it lightly. There was no answer, so I guessed Crystal must have cried herself to sleep.
When I woke up, it was full daylight, and the first thing I thought about was that I hadn’t heard Roy-Ellis come home. I looked out of the window. His truck was still gone.
Crystal was sitting at the kitchen table with a glass of milk in front of her.
“Roy-Ellis didn’t come home?” I asked.
She looked at me with swollen eyes and nodded.
“That’s not like him,” I said. “That’s not like him at all.”
“It isn’t? Tell me, Dove, did he ever have such a big fuss with . . . your mama?”
It was a hard question for Crystal to ask, and I thought for a few moments before I answered her. Because I’d never heard Mama and Roy-Ellis speak to each other except in soft, gentle ways.
“No. But it still isn’t like him.” And I truly meant that. Because Roy-Ellis wasn’t one to hold on to bad feelings. He liked things to be peaceful. And happy.
“I ran him off!” Crystal moaned, putting both hands around her glass of milk.
“But, Dove, I worked so hard to become a dancer. I worked nights in a box factory, to pay for dancing lessons in the daytime. I hardly ever got any sleep. My job at Across the Line was my first dancing job. It means everything to me!”
I didn’t know what to say. At last, I offered, “Let’s call Aunt Bett.” And all of a sudden, I realized it was Sunday morning, and I didn’t know if we—me and Molly and Little Ellis—were supposed to go to church with her.
“Let’s call Aunt Bett,” I repeated. Crystal nodded.
Darlene answered the phone, and I said, “Hi, Darlene—can I talk to Aunt Bett?”
“Sure, Dove. You all doing okay? I sure do want to meet Crystal.”
“I don’t know if we’re okay or not,” I said most truthfully.
“Hold on,” Darlene said, and I heard her muffled voice calling, “Mama, it’s Dove, for you.” And the way Darlene said Mama so easily brought surprising tears to my eyes.
“Dove?” Aunt Bett spoke in a way that made my name sound almost like a whisper.
“Yes’m?”
“Is everything okay?”
“I don’t think so, Aunt Bett,” I gulped. “Crystal and Roy-Ellis had a bad fuss last night, and Roy-Ellis stormed out mad, and he hasn’t come back.”
“That’s not like him,” Aunt Bett pronounced. “Roy-Ellis may get mad a little quick-like, but he gets over it just as quick. What kind of fuss did they have?” I glanced into the kitchen, where Crystal was sitting, with her hands clenched around the glass of milk and the corners of her mouth turned down.
“I can’t say right now,” I whispered, thinking that maybe we could get through all this without Aunt Bett finding out that Crystal had been a dancer at a place like Across the Line. “And I don’t even know if we’re supposed to go to church with you this morning.” There was a moment of silence at the other end.
“Is Crystal a churchgoing girl?”
“I don’t know. This is the first Sunday I’ve known her.”
“Well, you better ask her then.”
“Yes’m.” I put my hand over the receiver and called to Crystal.
“Crystal? Aunt Bett wants to know if you’re a churchgoing girl.” Crystal looked at me with those poor, miserable eyes, like she was trying to figure out what being a churchgoer or not had to do with Roy-Ellis.
“‘Cause we all go to church with Aunt Bett on Sundays,” I explained.
“What did she say about Roy-Ellis?” Crystal asked.
“Wait a minute,” I called. And into the receiver I asked Aunt Bett, “What do you say about Roy-Ellis?”
“Tell Crystal I think he’s on his way home. We can talk about it after church.” I relayed the message to Crystal, who seemed to brighten a little.
“Tell Aunt Bett that I am most certainly a churchgoing girl. My mama and daddy went to church every Sunday morning, and I went with them. For my whole life.” I repeated what Crystal said.
“Good!” Aunt Bett said, but I was still wondering how we could keep her from finding out about Crystal being a honky-tonk dancer. Somehow, her being a churchgoing girl and a honky-tonk dancer didn’t seem to fit too well together.
“Well then, it’s all settled,” Aunt Bett pronounced. “I’ll come by and pick you all up at ten-forty-five.”
And so that’s the way things went. I got myself, Molly, and Little Ellis ready, and then Crystal came out of the bedroom wearing a navy blue dress with a white lace collar and with her hair pulled back into a neat ponytail. He eyes were still red, but she did look pretty, I thought. Lots prettier than in that outfit that caused all the trouble.
But where was Roy-Ellis?
I really wondered if Aunt Bett’s old car was going to be able to hold another person, but Crystal was so tiny, we both managed to fit in the place where I usually sat. I held Molly on my lap, and Crystal held Little Ellis on hers. I did all the introducing of Aunt Bett’s brood, and when it came down to telling them who Crystal was, I said, “This is Crystal, my… Roy-Ellis’s wife.”
The cousins all stared at her dumbly, except for Darlene, who smiled warmly and said, “Where’s Roy-Ellis’s truck?”
“That’s enough, Darlene!” Aunt Bett said. “Don’t you ask so many questions.” Darlene smiled and shrugged her shoulders.
“Sorry,” she said.
At church, Crystal seemed to fit right in. She sat between me and Aunt Bett and she even knew the words to most of the hymns without looking at her book. When Aunt Bett noticed that, she leaned backward, looked at me behind Crystal’s head, and nodded. Crystal didn’t even notice. Once or twice, she touched her eyes with a tissue, but other than that, she was a real brave lady.
After church, we went in to Aunt Bett’s house with her. As usual, Aunt Bett made all of us change out of our church clothes right away, and once again, Darlene had to find things out of The Closet for me and Molly and Little Ellis. I waited to see if Aunt Bett made Crystal change her dress, as well. But of course, she didn’t. Probably because Crystal’s clothes weren’t ones Aunt Bett made so many pickles to get and needed back in good condition for passing on down.
Aunt Bett motioned Crystal to go on into the kitchen, and I noticed Aunt Bett looking at Crystal’s dress with frank admiration.
“Such fine stitching!” Aunt Bett exclaimed.
“Yes’m,” Crystal answered. “My mama is a wonder with a needle and thread.”
“She made that?”
“Yes’m,” Crystal answered, and I could see the clear admiration in Aunt Bett’s eyes. I could also see her figuring how to get that dress away from Crystal some time down the line, for passing along to her own girls. I wanted so bad to hear what Aunt Bett and Crystal would be saying in the kitche
n, but when I heard Aunt Bett say, “Now you tell me exactly what caused such a fuss,” I just couldn’t stand it. Because there was no telling what Aunt Bett was going to say if she found out that Crystal had been a roadhouse dancer! So I hurried into the bedroom and got me and Molly and Little Ellis out of our good church clothes and into some shirts and pants Darlene had found for us.
“What’s going on?” Darlene whispered.
“Crystal and Roy-Ellis had a fuss,” I whispered back. “Roy-Ellis stormed out of the house, and he didn’t come home last night.”
“All night?” Darlene asked, and I nodded.
“That’s not like Roy-Ellis,” she said. And I nodded again.
After we got our clothes changed, we all went out and sat on the porch, waiting for Aunt Bett and Crystal to get done talking. Nobody said a thing. We just sat and waited for the longest time, and every once in a while, somebody’s stomach growled, and we all giggled. Then silence again, until somebody else’s stomach growled. After what seemed like hours, Aunt Bett came to the screen door.
“You children get washed up and come on in to dinner.” I didn’t know whether she meant just her own children or not, so me and Molly and Little Ellis stayed put where we were sitting on the porch steps.
“You all too, Dove,” Aunt Bett said. Why, I was surprised as could be! Aunt Bett was inviting all of us to Sunday dinner, and Crystal too, even though I was sure Crystal’s secret must be out by now. But when we got into the dining room, I was even more surprised. The table was all set and extra chairs from the kitchen already in place. On the table was a big bowl of applesauce and one of green beans cooked with ham, and also a huge platter of hot cornbread. Just the smell of the food made the place under my tongue tickle. Then Crystal came out of the kitchen carrying a big dish of macaroni and cheese, fresh out of the oven. She put the dish on a folded kitchen towel Aunt Bett had put on the table, and Crystal and Aunt Bett looked at each other and smiled!
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