The other deacons and their wives filled their plates at a serving table and then joined Jeb. He assumed the chair next to him would be reserved for Fern. But first the chair to one side of him was taken and then the other, so he thought that perhaps Fern would be seated across from him. Then another woman wrestling a baby took that chair.
The gathering was not as small as he thought it would be. The hall filled with about a hundred or more members. Henry described first this one and then that one as either a leader in the town or a person who was in the habit of making a large donation to First Community.
“Each of these families has a vested interest in First Community. They are best described as men and women who care about this church.”
The hall doors were closed. Henry stood and offered a prayer of blessing on the church as well as on Jeb.
The deacons and wives all commenced eating.
“I’ll bet Marion and Fern have gotten tied up,” said Henry.
Finally the doors opened and Marion escorted Fern and Donna into the hall. She led them to the serving tables, where they made their selections. Fern looked all around and finally saw Jeb. She and Donna spoke for a moment and then the two of them took their plates to a table in the back of the room.
Marion returned to the head table and sat next to Henry. She looked all around the table, saw how the seats had filled up, and said, “Dear, we can’t have this! Where’s Miss Coulter’s seat?” She wasn’t hiding how she scowled at Henry.
“My wife knows I can’t handle these things alone,” said Henry to Jeb. He got up and waited as Marion began to shift the members around the table.
“I’ll go and fetch Fern and Donna,” said Jeb. Before making it to the back, he was stopped first by one church member and then another, each one praising his morning sermon. He walked up to the rear table and found them both eating but saying nothing at all. He was still feeling the vinegar of his morning message and the accolades when Donna said, “Well, have you come down to pay your subjects a visit?”
“They have a seat for the two of you up front. I can help you carry something, Fern.” He held out hands.
“I saw no seats for us, did you, Donna?”
“It was a mistake. Marion is correcting all of that, if you’ll just come with me.”
“We’re fine, Jeb. Really. You go ahead and join your party,” said Fern. “Donna and I are just kidding around.”
“But they’ve gone to all the trouble of giving up their seats just so you can join me.”
“I’m honored, Jeb. But I’ve already settled into my dinner.”
She was beginning to get under his skin. “You know, if you hadn’t taken so long, this wouldn’t have happened in the first place. Where were you anyway, talking to someone? Never mind, it doesn’t matter.”
She sipped her tea.
Donna kept staring down at her plate.
“I saw Senator Baer and his wife, if that matters. If you care to know that I saw him,” said Jeb.
“I saw him too.”
“What was he doing here anyway?” asked Jeb.
“His wife has gone to this church for years. He comes with her. She’s really sick.”
“I know, I know.” Jeb shoved his hands into his pockets, got right in her face, and muttered, “Are you telling me a man that you once had some sort of fling with attends this church?”
“You’re loud.”
“I’m done,” said Donna. She picked up her plate. “I’m going back to the hotel to rest. See you there, Fern.”
“Don’t leave,” said Jeb. “I’m sorry. But today’s been good until now. I thought you’d want to be a part of it, Fern. Or at the least, tell me what a good job I did this morning. So if you don’t mind, I’d appreciate it if the two of you would kindly pick up your plates and join me for a nice meal.”
Several people at the next table turned and whispered.
Fern’s fork froze in midair. She slowly pulled her napkin out of her lap and draped it over her forearm. She pushed her chair away from the table and picked up her plate.
“I’ve really had enough to eat. But thank you for the offer, Jeb. I mean that.” Donna gave Fern a peck on the cheek, picked up her handbag, and left.
“That was embarrassing,” said Fern.
Jeb led the way back to the head table. Marion greeted them and kept saying to Fern, “How awful, how can we make it up to you?” until Fern got up and gave Marion a squeeze around the shoulders. She assured her that she was fine.
Marion asked, “Henry, where did Senator Baer and his wife, Anna, go?” She said to Jeb and Fern, “We seated them next to the Blooms, since Sybil is Anna’s best friend.”
“I spoke with them,” said Fern. “Anna could hardly get out of bed this morning.”
“Sybil must not know or she would have told me,” said Marion.
“All I know is what Walton told me,” said Fern. “He seemed troubled over it. Donna and I thought he looked kind of weathered around the eyes.”
“This has aged him. Anna fought it for a good six months, but of late, she seems to be losing ground,” said Marion.
One of the deacons’ wives said, “Reverend Nubey, your message was right on the nose this morning.”
Several of the other deacons and their wives joined in raving over Jeb.
Jeb said, “I must say I’ve never known such a feeling as preaching to such a large congregation.”
“You’ll have to try it more often, Reverend,” said Marion.
Several of the guests laughed.
“Maybe I will and soon,” said Jeb. His tea glass was filled again.
“You must be used to hearing people bragging on your fiancée,” Marion said to Fern.
Fern pushed out her chair to go and refill her tea glass. She returned with a plate of cake for herself.
Marion must have forgotten what she had asked Fern. In the babble of the other women and the deacons, everyone lost track of who asked what and who did not respond, all except Jeb.
6
MONDAY DELIVERED A NEARLY BONE-WHITE sky over the Coulter farm. A wall of thinly white clouds covered a sky that brought no relief or rain upon the land.
Angel sat on Abigail’s front porch steps cradling Thorne in her arms. The three-year-old was prone to clinging. She squealed so loud from breakfast on that Angel worried that Ms. Abigail would grow weary of Claudia and her children. So she took her outside and sang to her. The little girl stared straight ahead, the pointer finger on her right hand twirling Angel’s hair into a spiral. Angel sang a song her mother, Thorne, had sung out on their front porch.
Inside all morning, Claudia’s oldest boy, John, ran all over Abigail’s house like a scalded pup. He ran from the parlor to the back of the house, into the kitchen, arms out as he made motor noises. He finally collapsed on Abigail’s parlor sofa sound asleep. Angel turned around occasionally to keep an eye on him through the screen door.
Claudia leaned against a fence post out near the northern cow pasture. A small herd of Coulter cattle grazed on the yellowing grass. A ring of smoke floated over her head. She enjoyed a cigarette she rolled that morning on the dining-room table, scraping into a paper the residue of loose tobacco from a tin Bo left behind. After she stubbed it out on the fence post, she walked back toward Angel on the front porch. Her cotton dress swayed front to back, sheer in the sunlight, a pale pink, practically white fabric. The silhouette of her legs showed through the cotton fabric, lean as a newly birthed fawn.
Thorne let out a sigh. Her head slumped against Angel and she was out. Angel stood up, holding the little girl underneath her back, her small face pressed into her body. “She’s nodded off,” she told Claudia.
Claudia was relieved. “I can’t remember the last time I had a minute to think or take a smoke. Ever since Bo took off, I’ve had both of them two hanging on me every minute of the day. I think they was scared when their daddy didn’t come home.”
“I’ll take her upstairs and lay her on my bed
.”
“You’ve had her all morning. Here, I’ll take her.” Claudia held out her arms and draped Thorne over one shoulder, holding the cigarette in her teeth. She carried her indoors.
Willie ran out of the house, followed by a breathless boy cousin. “Miz Abigail, she says you got a phone call, Angel.”
“Who would call me?” she said to herself. Ms. Abigail was the only person she knew who had a telephone. None of her kin had ever paid to have one put in. She got up from the porch stoop and went inside. She walked past a mirror hung above a table in the living room. Thorne left a round wet place on her shoulder seam.
Ms. Abigail’s maid, Myrna, stood with one arm extended holding out the telephone receiver. She wiped down the kitchen table with the other.
“Who is it?” asked Angel.
“Beats me. I never ask those things, hon,” she said. “Mrs. Coulter asked me to give you the phone. She took to her bed for a nap.” She picked up a load of laundry and carried it out the back door to the clothesline.
Angel held the telephone receiver to her ear. “This is Angel.”
The voice was male and languid, although somewhat muted, like he was standing out in a wind. “Hi, sweet cakes. Long time no hear from. Bet you never expected to hear from me.”
“Who is this?” she asked.
“This is fun. We could make it a game.”
“I’m going to hang up.”
“It’s Nash. Remember? The Studebaker?”
She tried to remember what she had said to Nash that would cause him to call. Then she remembered how he asked for the telephone number of the place she was staying. Guys like him asked for phone numbers all the time back in Nazareth, men who pass through town looking for a small-town girl to hang on their arm on a Saturday night. She never paid them any mind and never expected Nash would call. “I don’t think I can talk to you.”
“Why not? It’s my nickel. Say, you owe me one anyway.”
“You ought to know,” said Angel.
“I gave you my number. You could have at least paid me the courtesy of a call.”
“What do you want?”
“I don’t like to travel alone and I thought you’d like to see the world. Country life is too quiet for my tastes.”
There was a pause.
“My sister Claudia Drake is here. She lives in Norman.” She meant that she would be busy visiting with her sister. But none of the words came out as she had intended.
“Better idea. I could pick you up there.”
Angel’s pulse quickened. Her breath was coming faster. “I can’t talk to you.” She slid the phone back onto the hook.
Ida May came up from the cellar, having fetched a jar of grape jelly. “Your voice sounds funny,” she said to Angel. “Who was that anyway?”
“Here, let me open the jelly jar for you,” said Angel.
“It’s not for me. Miz Myrna had me fetch it for supper tonight.”
John woke up. His voice went off like a siren. Angel walked into the living room and collected him from the sofa. The side of his face was red and damp from spit, his right cheek dimpled from the woolen sofa threads.
Claudia stood staring out the front living-room window at the cattle eating breakfast from the yellow grass. She seemed unaware of John’s cries.
The arduous drive back to Ardmore caused Fern to retreat into a book. Donna made a bed on the backseat. Her breath became rhythmic as sleep overtook her.
“I hope that all of the kids we left on your mother’s doorstep haven’t been too much for her,” said Jeb.
“I couldn’t tell if she cared or not,” said Fern. “She’s hard to read.”
Jeb pulled into a filling station to fuel up. The evening porch light was left on, giving the lot a jaundiced cast. Inside the station, the attendant read the morning paper. He pulled down his feet from the desktop when he saw Jeb waving from his car. He came out and offered to fill the tank.
Jeb slipped back into the car. Fern marked her book with a crocheted marker and slid it under the seat. She laid her head against the seat and fixed her eyes ahead.
The attendant washed the window in front of her and smiled in at Fern. She managed a faint smile and then closed her eyes.
“You haven’t asked me about my meeting with Henry after the dinner yesterday. Do you want to know anything at all?” asked Jeb.
“I do, Jeb. This is all so fast, that’s all.” Her voice sounded stretched thin.
“The committee has asked me to agree to become a serious candidate.”
“And did you tell them you would?”
“I said I’d pray.”
“That was a good answer.”
“The dickens you say! I want this church, I want it for us!”
She opened her eyes. The attendant tapped on Jeb’s window. Jeb rolled down the window and paid him.
“Then tell them you’ll take it.”
“You know I can’t. Not until you and I have worked out all our matters.” He started the engine.
Fern pushed up from her relaxed posture and looked at him. “I saw the way those people catered to you yesterday, Jeb. They were all but saluting when you walked in the door. Church in the Dell has been a hard church to pastor, I know that. I’ve wanted you to give up, at times, but you didn’t. You stuck it out and over time, you’ve done some good. But this city church has you reeling from all of the attention they’ve shown you and I’m not ignorant of that either.” She slipped her feet out of her good shoes. She had a pair of white cotton socks in her pocketbook. She dug them out and pulled them onto her feet over the stockings. “You need time to clear your head, Jeb.”
“My mind is clear. This is the place for us, Fern. We’ve found the Welbys’ kin and a place to start over.”
“Claudia Drake is a mess. You aren’t suggesting that she is prepared to take in Angel and the kids, are you? She can’t feed what children she does have.”
“You heard the guy at the Skirvin. I found her some work. Even Henry said I had made a good connection for her, had one of his church members get some material to give Claudia. The girl lives right outside Oklahoma City, for heaven’s sakes. If we’re there, we can check on them, help them out. We can have it all, a new congregation, better pay, and give the Welbys back their family.”
“Life is not that easily fixed, Jeb.”
“Until now, it wasn’t.”
“You’ve made up your mind, so what else is there to talk about?”
“There’s more to tell. The pay is really good, Fern.
You can stay at home if you want.”
“I teach because I want.”
“I know. The Coulter girls choose to work. You’re like your daddy. But you won’t have to, that’s all I’m saying.” Donna sighed and stretched out her arms. Fern peered around the seat. “You finally awake?”
“I think you need to listen to Jeb, if you ask me,” she said. “I never knew what you saw in that scrubby little town, Fern. You never did fit the bill for a small-town preacher’s wife.”
“I liked you better asleep.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” said Jeb.
“Not that I ever saw you as a preacher’s wife either,” said Donna.
They drove past several little towns. Around noon, a red-and-blue light flashed ahead, an advertisement for hot-plate specials from inside a diner window. Jeb offered to buy Donna’s lunch, obliged to an ally.
Myrna called the Welby children and Claudia and her brood in for a noontime meal. Abigail took her meal in her room. That troubled Angel a tad. She hoped that with Claudia’s family showing up, that they weren’t wearing out their welcome. “Is Miz Abigail feeling poorly?” she asked Myrna.
“Oh, she is fine, girl, don’t trouble over it. Sometimes since Mr. Coulter passed, she likes to take her meal in her bedroom. She and Mr. Coulter used to take tea out on the patio outside her room. Wouldn’t surprise me if she sits out there to think about those times.”
The table wa
s set up family-style with bowls of vegetables set in the table’s middle section. Myrna made beans with ham and fried potatoes. She added two leaves to the table after Claudia showed up. Ida May carried a large bottle of ketchup to the table. She had been running errands all morning for Myrna in the same manner she had for either Angel or Fern back in Nazareth. Myrna took to Ida May as affectionately as all of the other women at Church in the Dell.
Willie and Darrell, Fern’s young nephew, came inside panting, their faces gleaming with sweat. They ran hoops all morning down the hill from the pasture. Myrna made them remove their berets.
Claudia sat holding Thorne as the girl wanted nothing to do with the baby chair Abigail kept for her grandchildren. John sat near Angel. She tied a rag around his neck and asked him if he liked potatoes.
“Corn bread is right out of the oven and I see Ida May has put butter on the table already.” She cut the round of corn bread into triangles and served it on a platter. “You all can bless your food and eat,” said Myrna. She had already fixed a plate for herself. She excused herself from the family and carried her plate into her quarters, right outside the kitchen.
Angel asked grace. She made Willie draw back his hand. “Hand the corn bread platter first to Claudia, Willie. Serve company first.”
Claudia accepted the serving plate. She served herself and handed the platter to Ida May. Angel got up and served her sister with beans and potatoes, since her lap was full of Thorne. Claudia smelled the food, her eyes closed. “I haven’t seen potatoes in years. Nor ham in the beans, nor piccalilli relish, nor onion slice.” She blew on a piece of potato, dipped it in ketchup, and held it in front of Thorne’s mouth. “You’ve done good by your brother and sister, Angel. I couldn’t have done no better. Fact is, I probably wouldn’t have done near as good.”
“It’s because of Jeb and Miss Fern.”
“And the good people at Church in the Dell,” said Willie. He waited for the bread platter to return from around the table. He forked corn bread onto his plate. “Everybody gives up a little of what they have and it ends up enough.”
Earthly Vows Page 8