The thought that occurred to him was how unlike his mother’s worry Emily’s concern was. While both women unquestionably loved him, Mrs. McClellan’s worry always seemed to be nagging. Emily’s question had been so filled with empathy, that he was touched by it. “Darling, my leg is just a little sore today, it probably means it’s going to rain. I really am all right.” He spoke this last very deliberately, and then continued in a suggestive tone, “If you want, you could take my mind off it.”
Emily smiled what Brian thought of as her seething-cauldron-of-passion smile, and began to kiss him while she ran her finger tips over his chest. Then she unbuttoned several of the buttons of his shirt, and stopped to look into his eyes, as if to say, “If you have any objections, this is the time.” He only smiled at her, and she bent over and kissed his chest several times. “How’s your leg now?” she asked.
Pulling her to him to kiss her lips, he murmured, “What leg?”
Later in the evening when Emily was gone, Brian placed a phone call to Vermont. His usual mode of correspondence with his parents was by letter, so he had to assure his mother that nothing was wrong.
“Mom, I called to let you know that Emily and I are going to be married. We want to come home and have the wedding at the church there.”
“Well, Brian, that’s just wonderful. I just couldn’t be happier. Oh dear, let me give you to your father, I think I’m going to cry.”
His father’s reaction touched him very deeply. “Brian, we wish every possible happiness for both of you. Emily is such a lovely person, we’re going to be thrilled to have her as part of the family. You give her our love and tell her how happy we are about this wonderful news. We love you, son.”
“I love you too, Dad.”
Brian had been a guard on his high school basketball team, but hadn’t had any interest in playing beyond that level. Basketball had never captured his imagination the way baseball had. When he had first moved to North Carolina, he was astonished by the obsession for college basketball that seemed to consume the entire state. Of course, the state’s four premier universities are all members of the Atlantic Coast Conference, and they seemed to be consistently ranked among the best teams in the nation.
When he heard that the first and second rounds of the NCAA tournament were to be held in the city, the first thought that had occurred to Brian was that Emily would love to go and see the games in person. He had been surprised to discover that she was such a fan, but figured it must be in the water. She had no hopes that her alma mater, North Carolina State, would be in the tournament, since they had had a dismal year, but there was sure to be an ACC team present. Emily was one of those unusual State graduates who didn’t consider the other three Tobacco Road teams to be satanic. As long as an ACC team was playing one of “the Enemy” (i.e., any non-ACC team) she would be content to cheer her heart out for them.
And so they found themselves, along with Paul, among the cheering multitudes packed into the Coliseum to watch Wisconsin, Stanford, Texas Tech, and North Carolina battle it out. The odds-on favorite to win the regional was the team from the University of North Carolina. Fans from that school were fond of asking the question, “If God’s not a Tarheel, then why is the sky Carolina blue?” The team, in that same vein, had no trouble with false modesty, or modesty of any other kind. After the lesser games were played, the main event got underway, the boys in blue took the court, and Emily wouldn’t have budged from her seat for anything less than the Second Coming.
Brian found it amusing to listen to her comments as the game went along. At one point during the second round game between UNC and Wisconsin, there was a collision between the small forward of Carolina and a player from UW. Both bodies hit the floor. The referee called the Tarheel for the foul, and Emily speculated that the referees decide who the injured party is based on who groans the loudest. At another point while a free throw was being set up at one end of the court, a Wisconsin forward was on the floor injured at the other end. It seemed that no one noticed him, which incensed Emily. “You’d think somebody would go over there and pick the poor soul up.” Finally one of the trainers from the North Carolina bench went over to the young man. Emily said, “That just goes to show that North Carolina boys have class.”
When it was all over, the Heels also had the game, which turned out to be a rout. The score stood at 93 to 67, and Emily was flushed with the thrill of victory every bit as much as if she had played the game herself.
Punctuality was a quality that Emily required of herself. She felt that the least a person could do when she was expected somewhere was to arrive on time. She disliked the sensation of keeping people waiting. Brian had learned early in the relationship to treat tardiness as a symptom of some sort of upset. It was usually an accurate barometer of Emily’s mental state.
He was expected at her apartment for dinner at seven o’clock one Friday evening, and was there precisely on time. He had to ring twice to get an answer at the door. When Emily presented herself, it was obvious that she had been asleep.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I was just going to lie down for a few minutes when I got home from work, and I fell sound asleep. Dinner is going to be late. I hope you’re not famished.”
“No, I’m fine. Are you feeling okay?” He didn’t want to make a big deal about it because he didn’t want her to think he was displeased about having to wait.
“It’s just been an awful week at work. They’re talking about re-organizing everything, and it’s going to be a big pain. Let me hop in the shower for just a minute, and I’ll be human again. Then I’ll tell you all my troubles.”
In a few minutes he heard the sound of the water running and amused himself looking around the kitchen for signs of what dinner might be. He was just thinking that it looked like a good night to send out for pizza when the phone rang. It was unusual for the phone to ring at Emily’s when Brian was there because, according to her, he was the only one who ever called her.
“Hello?” he answered.
The male voice at the other end hesitated as if certain that it must have reached a wrong number. “I’m looking for Emily Stone.”
“She can’t come to the phone right now. Can I take a message?”
Again there was a hesitation, as if the caller was digesting Brian’s words. Finally the heavy North Carolina accent came back with, “Ask her to call me when she’s free. My name is Bob Stone. She has my number.”
Brian pondered this while waiting for Emily. He knew that Robert Stone had been her father’s name, and so it was logical to assume that the caller had been her brother. She spoke very little about her siblings except to say that they were all very troubled people. He hoped this call did not portend some sort of bad news.
“Now I feel better,” she said as she entered the room in her favorite jeans and sweater. “Did I hear the phone ring?”
“Yes. You’re supposed to call Bob Stone when you’re free.”
“Then I’ll be free when pigs fly. How about some dinner? How does an omelet sound?”
Brian need not have been telepathic to know that Emily had no desire to discuss the telephone call. “I vote we send out for pizza. I’ve got a craving for pepperoni.”
While they were enjoying their meal, his half pepperoni, her half plain cheese, the phone rang again. After two rings she still hadn’t moved to answer it, so he said, “You want some privacy?”
“No,” she said grimly, “I’m more likely to keep a civil tongue in my head if I know you’re listening.”
Her end of the conversation left little doubt of what was going on. “Hello? ... Uh huh...It’s none of your business who answers my telephone... What do you want? ... What do you need a lawyer for? ... What does your wife say about all this? ... I can’t say as I blame her... I can’t help you...If I had it to spare, which I don’t, I certainly wouldn’t give it to you...Yes, well, that’s your problem.” With that, she hung up with a bang.
After a few moments cool down time, she l
ooked at Brian, “That was my oldest brother.”
“I gathered.”
“He was arrested for drunk driving and they’re going to take his license. He wants money to hire a lawyer. His wife left him.” There was an element of sheepishness in her voice, as if she was terribly embarrassed about what she was saying, as if it wasn’t proper conversation for gentle people.
“Do you want to talk about it?” He put a light emphasis on the word ‘want,’ as if to say that he was willing, but didn’t want to pry.
She exhaled heavily, her cheeks puffing out with the excess air. “I suppose you ought to know what kind of people you’re marrying into. I don’t believe you all have people like that in Vermont. My brother Bobby is a redneck, there’s just no other way to put it. He drives a pickup truck with a gun rack, he wears a baseball cap with the name of a tractor company on it every waking minute of the day, he drinks beer like it was water, and he beats his wife. The only time I ever hear from him is when he wants money, and if he ever paid back a debt I’d fall over in a faint.” This tirade was followed by a pause, and then she added, “Charming, isn’t it?”
“Something you said about original sin is coming to mind. It sounds very much like your brother inherited more from your father than his name. I certainly understand why you don’t want him as part of your life.”
“Do you? Sometimes I feel guilty about it.”
“Emily, darling,” he said gently, “sometimes you feel guilty about breathing. It’s not your job to fix your brother, you couldn’t if you tried.” As he spoke, he had his arm around her shoulders. “You’re all tensed up. You said before you got in the shower that you were going to tell me all your troubles. What’s up?”
“Things are not going very well at work. They’re talking about a major re-organization. They would put my department into another department, they want to move everything around, they want to make big changes in the charging system. It is going to be a huge headache, and it won’t improve the actual service offered by the library at all.”
“Then why are they going to do it?”
“It’s typical bureaucratic thinking. They can’t stand for things to stay the same. They think the library will get stagnant if it doesn’t get all stirred up every now and then. My job is enough of a drag already without having to do a lot of unnecessary extra work.”
“So quit.”
She looked at him as if he had suddenly lost hydraulic power in the lift that carried good sense to his brain. “Just like that? ‘So quit.’?”
“Why not? You don’t like the work very much; you haven’t had anything good to say about your job in months. Why not just quit?”
“Brian, I have responsibilities. I have bills. I have rent. I can’t just quit.”
“Well, you could move in with me,” the grin on his face told her that he was just kidding, “but failing that,” and his voice took on a more serious tone, “let me tide you over.”
“You aren’t seriously suggesting that I take money from you, are you? That would be completely improper. It’s out of the question.”
“Oh, I know that voice, that ‘what will people say?, ‘how would that look?’ voice. I know better to argue with you when you’re using that one. It’s like you’re defending the whole social code of Southern Womanhood. If you change your mind, let me know. I don’t want a frazzled bride, now do I?”
As March raced by and April approached, the details for the wedding began to coalesce. The date was set for May 22. Mrs. McClellan took the matter firmly into her capable hands and seemed from her phone calls to be enjoying orchestrating the various arrangements. Brian was concerned that Emily would feel that his mother had taken things over, but the bride-to-be assured him that she preferred it that way.
“I wouldn’t have the foggiest idea how to arrange a wedding, especially since it’s so far away. My goodness, I don’t know anything about florists or catering or any of that stuff. Your mother is sweet to take it all over for us. I’ve got my hands full around here.”
Her job continued to plague her, but she was determined to stick it out. For Emily the work ethic was simply a subsection of the Christian ethic by which she tried to live. Her philosophy was, if the good Lord had intended people to sit around idle all the time, He would have had pizza grow on trees. She took satisfaction in a job completed according to instructions, although her patience with her current situation was wearing thin. She compared the library re-organization project to an anecdote she had read about the Works Progress Administration of the Depression era. “We’re raking the leaves from one end of the park to the other. No doubt when we are finished, they will tell us to rake them back. Your tax dollars at work.”
Emily had wondered from the time she began her career if she had become a librarian because she was looking for an atmosphere where quiet was the accepted norm, where every single item had its place, and where being fastidious about detail was considered an asset rather than a liability. The shorthand way in which she described the question to Brian was, “Did I become a librarian because I’m a fusspot, or did I become a fusspot because I’ve always been a librarian?” Since Brian did not yet have a wife to beat, he figured he did not yet have to answer such no-win questions, and so kept his silence.
There had been a time in Emily’s career when the prophets of secular society had looked at the expanding influence of computers and other means of information dissemination and predicted the demise of the public library. “Print is dead” was a sentiment expressed in all the newspapers. But those who worked in the institutions in question knew that as long as teachers assign book reports, books continue to go up in price, and the sum of human knowledge increases, however slowly, libraries will always be the best bargain in town. When she put it in grand terms, Emily compared the decline in public libraries to the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. “We don’t suffer from the challenge from outside that new technology offers, we suffer from weakness from within. What we do—getting information people need into their hands—has taken a back seat to the process of our doing it.”
Brian decided to tackle a difficult subject on a lovely warm evening in the first week in April. They had spent the afternoon doing some needed garden chores around the outside of his house. Emily had never had an opportunity to do any gardening before, and had discovered that she genuinely enjoyed working with her hands in the dirt. Brian had never been particularly fond of yard work, and was glad to find a willing laborer.
After they had taken turns in the shower and eaten a simple meal of spinach salad and brown bread, they were enjoying a new recording of Scottish music being sung by a noted soprano. One of the most well-known of the songs featured the refrain, “For love of Annie Laurie I would lay me doon and dee.” Emily said it was good wallowing music. “You don’t just listen to songs that are sad and mournful like these, you wallow in them.”
When the tape was over and it was quiet in the room, Brian brought up his concern. “There’s something we ought to discuss, if you’re not too worn out from the afternoon’s hard labors.”
“I’m tired, but it’s a good sort of tired. What do you want to talk about?”
“Well, I’ve been thinking it’s about a year since your last appointment with Dr. McGinnis, and so it might be a good idea to have your checkup and talk to her about birth control.” He said it in as nonchalant a manner as possible, remembering the struggle it had been to get her to see the gynecologist last year.
“I guess so,” Emily said with a deep sigh, “What do I want to tell her about birth control?”
“Well, I think you ought to discuss the various options with her.”
Emily looked thoughtful for a moment as if weighing a comment to see if she ought to say it. She then asked, “Why can’t I just talk to you about the various options. They teach birth control to men in medical school, don’t they? I think I would like to avail myself of the benefits of being engaged to marry a doctor.”
Brian appr
eciated the fact that she was taking the whole matter with humor rather than the panic that was her reaction the year before. “I still want you to go for your check-up, but I’d be perfectly happy to talk to you about contraception if it won’t embarrass you.”
“Of course it will embarrass me, but I’d rather be embarrassed with you than Dr. McGinnis,” was her honest reply.
Brian went into a careful, clinical explanation of all the methods available and what each entailed. He tried to avoid any medical terminology that Emily might not understand. He also wanted to make it clear that this was a choice she should make carefully. She listened very intently, nodding rather blankly along the way. When he finished, he asked her if she had any questions.
“Aren’t you going to tell me what you prefer?” she asked.
“Sweetheart, this is something you have to decide. This is very personal. It’s your body.” He felt strongly that unless she decided this for herself, Emily would be uncomfortable with any of the methods he had described. “Is there any other information you want or need?” he asked.
Emily began playing with the buttons on her sweater and staring at the floor. She spoke slowly. “I’m not sure what to ask. When you say it’s up to me, are you saying that you don’t want to have anything to do with it?”
“No, not at all. If you chose a method which places the bulk of the responsibility on me, that’s fine. But the choice has to be yours.” He got the distinct impression that he hadn’t dealt with this matter at all capably, but was unsure what to do to remedy it. He finally said, “I don’t think I’ve explained this very well. Maybe you ought to talk to Dr. McGinnis about it.”
A few days later, Brian was surprised by the sight of Emily waiting for him by his car at the end of his work day.
Blackberry Winter Page 18