The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder: A Novel

by Rebecca Wells

  “Oh, Papa, I don’t want to kick you out of the home where you’ve lived forever.”

  “I’ve been holding on to this place for you,” he said, “like your M’Dear told me to. I knew you’d be back someday.” Then Papa grinned. “And I got catfish with my name on them!” He laughed, and I joined in.

  “Oh, Papa!” I said, then I hugged him tight. It felt wonderful to laugh together.

  The next morning I stood at the front entrance to the Swing ’N Sway. There I was looking at an old dance studio to renovate into a salon—plus a house to make my own for me and Fred Astaire. I prayed, Oh, Moon Lady and M’Dear, I need your help to step over this threshold and claim this place as my Crowning Glory. Then I felt a slight nudge, and the next thing I knew, I was standing in the studio with brand-new eyes.

  I had a vision of just where I wanted the shampoo sink and the special, comfortable leaning-back chair—just one, because I’m going to be one-on-one with all my customers, hoping that healing will come with my touch for all of them. I’ll find someone to handle manicures and pedicures.

  I’ll use M’Dear’s antique vanity for my rollers and perm rods and scissors. And I’ll get some kind of rolling unit made out of lightweight wood. I don’t want anything cold and plastic in my salon.

  I can see it now. I’ll expand the old dance studio porch and get a new swing with pretty cushions on it. Then I’ll paint up our old wicker chairs and table, so clients can sit there and read magazines while sipping on real lemonade and ice tea. I’ll make my salon so inviting and beautiful that just walking in will make clients feel relaxed. So my vision for the Crowning Glory was emerging, and I had the Moon Lady and M’Dear to thank for it.

  Oh, it was so wonderful to be back home! I wanted to keep the house more or less the way M’Dear had it, the way it had been for years. I’ll leave M’Dear and Papa’s room the way it was for the time being, but I’ll redo my room with a new paint color—a lavender that makes me feel both calm and alive.

  And the kitchen—I loved that old kitchen! The walls were an old rich buttery yellow, and it had old green-and-white tile countertops, a painted wood floor, and all the wooden cabinetry originally built by my grandfather. The cabinetry was painted white when I was little, but then M’Dear painted it all a fabulous deep scarlet . Using that color in the kitchen was just unheard of in La Luna, or anywhere as far as I was concerned. But that was M’Dear for you. That kitchen with all its color always felt like a party.

  The house still had ceiling fans in every room, which we used all year round. In winter, I loved how the blades moved counterclockwise, to push the hot air down to warm us.

  How I loved this house that was once shared by the five of us. Now it would be home to me and Fred Astaire—and who knows, possibly someone else someday.

  It was such a comfort to me to have Sweet’s clothes with me as I settled in, but I knew it was time to give them away.

  One day I saw Olivia’s husband, Pana, riding by on his bicycle. So I called out, “Pana! Hello! I’ve got something for you.”

  “Are you cooking?” he asked.

  “No, it’s not food.” Then I gave him Sweet’s nylon windbreaker jacket, which was gray with black and purple diagonal stripes.

  “Try it on,” I told him. “Go on in and look at yourself in the mirror.”

  “Oh, this nice, this real nice. Thank you, Miss Calla. It so nice to have you in the house. I look out at night and see your lights. Since your daddy spend so much time up to the camp, this old house so lonely, be like you could just feel how lonely it was. You need anything done around here, you just call. I be watching over you all the time.”

  Since the jacket fit Pana so well, I gave him some of Sweet’s shirts and pants too. I tied them up in a bundle with string.

  “Are you sure you can carry all that on your bike?” I asked. “I can bring it to you later.”

  “No, no, I carry lots of things on my bike.”

  Then he was off, slowly pedaling the bike across the road, wearing Sweet’s jacket.

  Little by little, I gave Sweet’s clothes away to people I knew. Then I piled up the rest and drove them to the black Baptist church. After that the strangest thing would happen. Every once in a while, I’d spot Sweet’s clothes on the back of someone heading out to pick pecans, on someone walking to the mailbox, on the school bus driver, on a man going to church. I even saw some women wearing Sweet’s shirts. At first, that threw me. I’d catch a glimpse of a certain plaid shirt, for instance, and would think it was Sweet. I’d have to stop the car and take a big, deep breath to calm myself down.

  Then I started to love seeing Sweet’s clothes being worn by people in La Luna. They were like little pieces of Sweet still moving, a reminder that he really was still there—not so I could touch him, but in the way that red birds flit past on a cold winter day. You can’t touch them, but they are there, giving a bit more color to the world.

  The one thing of Sweet’s that I kept for myself was his T-shirts. I’d loved sleeping in them when he was alive, and I still did now that he was gone. Sometimes, I’d lift the soft cotton of the T-shirt to my nose and imagine that I could still smell his smell. That was such a comfort.

  Once I let Sonny Boy know that I had to decided to convert the dance studio into my Crowning Glory salon, it seemed like everybody started calling and showing up, wanting to do something for me. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t even have to ask most of the time. Somehow, I had forgotten how people in a small town just pitch in and help to “get it done!”

  The first thing I discussed with Sonny Boy, who now had his own construction company, Sonny Boy Building, was how to divide the space so we could continue the first-Saturday-of-the-month dances and cook-ups that had been a tradition in La Luna since we were kids. I told him I only needed a third of the old dance studio for my salon.

  He helped me with everything, making sure that those floors got resanded and then putting a good coat of varnish on them. He sketched a plan for putting French doors in at the entrance.

  “I want to get that whole front section open for you,” he told me, “so that the light and a view of the river can come in. I think two, maybe even three sets of French doors. I’ve found you some good old brick out by the Bennett plantation, so I can make you a patio with a fountain. Will is on board to design everything. I want your ladies to look out there and see the river and be able to hear it. And you can plant all kinds of flowers around the patio and have an awning and little tables and lounge chairs where the customers can sit and relax.”

  Aunt Helen, of course, offered to do anything involving sewing. We decided to drape gold tulle around the edges of the mirror where I would do hair. It had been the mirror that sat on top of M’Dear’s antique dresser, and it had these wonderful 1920s ornate rosettes and curlicues on the edges, plus two little drawers on the side where I could keep my instruments. I wanted to start with the mirror because it would be the first thing clients would see. I wanted the salon to feel like an old drawing room in the South, homey and a little mysterious.

  As for the rest, Renée found me some gorgeous old wooden cabinetry and helped me paint it a glossy black with gold accents. And I found a comfortable plump chair that was red with tiny little gold specks.

  Ricky and Steve arrived early Saturday morning for the weekend, and worked with Will and me to choose my color scheme. We decided that the walls should be painted mauve. Steve took control of having the paint mixed just right. Then we all went to work painting. By the time Ricky and Steve headed back to New Orleans late Sunday night, Ricky was saying, “My back is killing me. I shudder to think what the hairdos I come up with tomorrow will look like.”

  The next weekend they came back, bringing Sukey along, too, to start focusing on all the accents for the salon. Ricky was particularly good with lighting. Ricky said, “Now, we need to start working with your aunt’s chiffon fabric. I’d like to be a little more careful in the relationship between the lights and the chi
ffon. We do have everything on dimmers, is that correct?”

  “Exactly, Ricky.”

  “I couldn’t take it if it wasn’t. Now—”

  “Ricky, come over here. I want to show you this little area that I’m calling ‘the parlor.’ We’re going to have lamps in there, too.”

  “Very good. The more lamps, the better. Remember, everyone looks better in a pink light.”

  “Ricky, I know—but I want people to leave here looking like they will in the real world.”

  “Calla, I ask you, what is more healing? To see yourself as you want to see yourself, or to see yourself as you think others will see you?”

  I said, “Well, to see yourself as you want to see yourself.”

  “I rest my case,” Ricky said. “Everyone looks better in pink light.”

  I had to laugh, but that silly conversation made me think. He’s right. This whole place is about healing. It’s about healing myself and healing anyone who comes in. Then I walked Ricky out to the porch.

  “Papa’s redoing the porch with Pana’s help. They’re putting in new screens and making sturdy new steps. I’m asking them to paint them periwinkle, along with the interior of the porch. So when my customers enter the Crowning Glory, they will know they’re entering a different kind of a place. And I’ll be having music playing that you can hear from out here, music that makes your hair feel good.”

  “Perfecto,” Ricky said. “Yes, Calla, relaxation is everything.”

  “This space,” I said, “which has healed for years, will continue its magic!”

  That evening, Ricky, Steve, Sukey, and I cooked dinner and had a lovely, lively visit together before they had to head back to New Orleans. I missed them terribly as they drove off, but I was excited that the Crowning Glory was really coming together.

  Miz Lizbeth was the one who gave me the rug for the parlor at the salon. The day I’d gone to visit and update her about all my plans for the salon, she said, “Why, Calla, I’ve got a rug here that has been rolled up forever that would be perfect.”

  It was perfect and so beautiful, an old-fashioned shade of light blue with a wine-colored pattern.

  “Are you sure you want to give this away?” I asked.

  “Absolutely. We’ve had that rug rolled up ever since my sister passed. That was about the time you and Tucker started going together.”

  I stopped for a minute and looked at her.

  “Ohhh,” she said, “I haven’t forgotten those times. It sure is good to have you back in town.” Then she pulled a photo album off the bookcase.

  “There are a bunch of memories of you and Tuck in here. I thought you might like to go through it after all these years.”

  She opened the album and set it in my lap, leaving it to me to turn the pages. And there we were: me and Tuck when he first got to La Luna and I hated him, then the two of us after we got to be best friends, and finally as a couple during the summer when we fell in love.

  By the time I got to the prom pages, my whole body was hot! I felt nauseated.

  “Well,” I said, “it’s just been lovely to look at these pictures.” I closed the album. “Will you excuse me, please? I need to go to the bathroom.”

  I went upstairs, because the Tuckers never did put in a bathroom downstairs in their old house. The bathroom was just as I remembered it, with its big old claw-foot tub. I grabbed one of the washcloths, and I wet it and put it on my forehead. “Don’t get mascara all down your face,” I told myself, “or else Miz Lizbeth will know something’s wrong.”

  I squeezed my eyes tight. You can do that, you know—squeeze your eyes so tight that the tears don’t come. Then I looked in the mirror, took a deep breath, and walked back downstairs.

  Luckily, Miz Lizbeth didn’t have a clue. “You know how well Tucker’s doing?” she said. “I mean, that law firm of his, it’s one of the finer ones in San Francisco. And Mimi, his wife, is so beautiful. Her father’s one of the founding partners in that firm, and Tuck is getting real close to being a full partner himself. Not because of the father-in-law, mind you. No, he’s earned it. He’s been working sixty to seventy hours a week since he started. Tuck’s come out just twice, and both times by himself. Well, he’s so busy at the law firm. And you know, she’s got all her charities and society parties and all. I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but last time Tuck called, it sounded like they were having marital problems.”

  Then Miz Lizbeth took a clean handkerchief from inside the cuff of her blouse and swiped a tear from her eyes. “It makes me so sad, Calla. I always dreamed that you and Tuck would be together.” She looked at me, and I looked away.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said, in a voice that wasn’t really mine. “Thank you so much for the rug, Miz Lizbeth.”

  I mumbled an excuse and started to back toward the door.

  “Anyway!” she said, “I’m so glad you came by, Calla. I’ll have that rug carried over to the Crowning Glory. And if there’s anything you need, you know you can call on us—we’re right next door. I’m an old lady, but you just call me, okay?”

  “Thank you,” I said. Then I left, and I walked the path that Tuck and I had used hundreds of times, going back and forth through the pine trees. I could walk it in my sleep.

  When I got back home, I called Sukey and told her I had just come back from the Tuckers’.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Well, nothing, really, except that—oh, Suke! I thought I didn’t care anything about Tuck anymore. It’s been so long, you know? I loved Sweet so much, and my heart is still so full of love for him. I don’t understand why I should be so upset when Miz Lizbeth talks about Tuck and how well he’s doing.” I paused. “You know, Suke, I think about our senior year in high school, when Renée and Eddie were already ahead of us, announcing their engagement. Tuck wouldn’t even look me in the eyes when they did. He knew then, didn’t he? He knew he wasn’t coming back. Why didn’t I know? Why was I so stupid?”

  Sukey said, “Snap out of it, Calla. You’ve got a wonderful new life there in La Luna. You’re building a business, your Crowning Glory. Believe me, it’s going to be a place where everybody wants to be. You have fulfilled your dream, Calla. You wanted to come to New Orleans. You wanted to get trained. You wanted to become a really good beautician. And now you’re back in La Luna like you wanted to be. With your own shop.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Only I found what I wanted, and then I lost it.”

  “I know,” Sukey said. “I think about Sweet, too, and about how funny he was. I mean, that Sweet could have you on the floor.”

  That made me laugh, and then I started to cry while I was laughing.

  “Calla,” Sukey said, “why don’t I come tomorrow and spend the night? We’ll eat pizza, and I’ll bring you some good beer from New Orleans. How does that sound?”

  “No, Suke, no. You can’t—no—don’t bring beer!”

  “Ha-ha-ha! Gotcha,” Sukey laughed. “You know I wouldn’t touch a beer with a ten-foot pole.”

  “Okay, you got me,” I said, with a sigh of relief. “But really, I’m fine, Suke. You don’t need to come.”

  “You promise?” Sukey asked.

  “I promise.”

  “Cross your heart and hope to die?”

  “Yes, cross my heart and hope to die.”

  “Stick a needle in your eye?”

  I started laughing. “Stick a needle in my eye.”

  “I love you,” Sukey said.

  “I love you too, Suke. Love you like a cuke.”

  I hung up the phone and just sat on the couch, stroking Fred Astaire in my lap. Sometimes, I can’t tell how long it is that I just sit. Quiet. Time just melts away.

  Chapter 38

  1983

  The whole town had pitched in. It was like a Shaker barn-raising. So we were able to open the Crowning Glory in six months! Of course, everyone who had been involved in any way with the renovation wanted to put in their two cents’ worth about the grand op
ening. At first, the only thing everyone could agree on was that there should be a grand opening and that it should be a very big deal. I just listened and noted everyone’s suggestions. The one thing I knew was that I wanted to hold the opening on a night with a full moon. March’s full moon happened to fall on a Saturday night.

  Joseph Moreau, my neighbor down the road, had volunteered to groom the grounds all around the salon. He pruned the trees and pulled old pecan branches and brambles out of the tall grass before cutting it. He even uncovered a forgotten fig tree. Our place was really beginning to shine again. One evening, I brought out a pitcher of lemonade and thanked him for all of his hard work. He just brushed it off, saying, “Y’all’s place always felt like a park to me when we were growing up. I was shy back then, and you and your mama were always kind to me. Fixing the grounds seemed the best way to honor her memory and welcome you back.”

  I was thinking of how to respond when Joseph gave me a shy smile and got back to work. As I walked back to the house, it struck me—not for the first time—how many lives in this little community M’Dear had deeply touched and how many people cared that I’d returned.

  Joseph’s family’s place was on the other side of Gum Swamp. It wasn’t a big farm, but being so close to the river, it had excellent soil. “Ice cream dirt” is what Pana called that kind of land. Joseph had badgered his daddy and brother into switching to organic farming. At first, the rest of the farmers in town shunned the Moreaus and made jokes about them, considering them to be somewhere between hippies and communists. But then they noticed that the Moreaus were getting a good price for their crops, while a lot of other small farms were going under. Any way you cut it, farming is hard work. Anybody who can make a go of it earns respect. Eventually all those farmers’ wives, along with the rest of the town, started showing up at the Moreaus’ roadside produce stand to buy honey and vegetables.