The Wedding Machine

by Beth Webb Hart

  As Ray picks up the price tag, she nearly falls over. The skirt alone is $260.00, and the top is $145.00. Who knows what the necklace costs?

  “Don’t look at that,” Carson says, gently pulling the tag out of Ray’s hand. “It’s great on you. And William and I want to get you something nice.”

  So Ray has nothing to do but trust her daughter-in-law’s chic sensibilities, and before she’s buttoned her jacket Carson has charged the whole thing to her platinum card. The sales lady hangs the get-up and drapes it with a silver plastic bag that shimmers in the sunlight as they walk across King Street to the parking garage.

  Then they head back to Jasper and over to Sylvia Crenshaw’s beauty salon to get Ray’s hair done. Ray doesn’t care what Hilda says—she is not paying a hundred dollars in Charleston every time she needs a new do just to avoid Trudi Crenshaw. And as soon as she gets the nerve, she’s calling to cancel her next appointment with Dr. Arhundati and head back to Angus for her menopausal medical needs. Hormone replacement therapy, here I come! she thinks. Oh, I can’t wait!

  “Wanna get a manicure?” Ray says to Carson, who turns her nose up at the outdated Ladies’ Home Journal magazines on Sylvia’s coffee table. Trudi waves at Ray and motions Carson over.

  “Okay,” Carson sighs. “Do you do French?” she asks Trudi.

  “Yes ma’am.” Trudi repositions her hips in the pink round seat.

  Ray nods and waves a thank-you to her, and she smiles back as if to say, “This town is too small to be enemies.”

  Ray is relieved to be back in the care of someone who understands her hair and knows how to make it do. “I’ve missed you, Sylvia.”

  “Me too.” Sylvia fusses with Ray’s bangs. “Fill me in on everything. I hear Priscilla has a new man who’s a friend of Little Hilda’s.”

  “That’s right.” Ray is thankful to be able to gush about how Priscilla and Donovan have been seeing each other quite regularly these last few months since Little Hilda’s wedding. “I can’t help but keep my fingers crossed about it.”

  Then she thinks of her last conversation with Pris a few days ago. Poop 2—that daredevil, J.K. Neely—has not liked her relationship with Donovan one bit, and he keeps calling her and writing her these mournful love letters that describe in graphic detail how strongly his heart aches for her.

  “Don’t respond, Pris,” Ray said to her the other day when she called to read her one.

  “I won’t, Mama,” she said. “But you have to admit, his letters are sort of sweet in a bizarre kind of way.”

  “Bizarre is not what you want for a lifetime,” Ray said to her.

  “I know,” she said. “Well, Donovan is picking me up for a pops concert on the Mall, so I better get ready.”

  “Have fun!” Ray said, trying to keep a lid on her excitement.

  “Oh, I hope this one works out, Sylvia,” she says as Sylvia pumps her foot at the base of the chair and lifts Ray up.

  “Sounds like it will,” she says. “And if it does, you know I want an invite to the best wedding Jasper will ever feast their eyes on.”

  It will be grand, Ray thinks as she stares back at herself in the mirror while Sylvia works her hair with a comb. She can almost smell the gardenias in Priscilla’s bouquet and pinned across the lapel of Donovan’s white jacket. If she has her way, it will be a May wedding. Lord, let it be, she says as her heart pounds around her chest like a trapped bird. Please, oh please, let this one turn out the way I want it to.

  “So what would you like for your birthday?” Sylvia asks Ray as she takes a hunk of hair from the back of her head and clamps it with a hot pink clip. She picks at the strands beneath it and adds, “Other than Priscilla to marry that nice young buck?”

  “Oh, I don’t need a thing,” Ray says.

  Then Sylvia leans in with a concerned look and whispers in Ray’s ear, “Honey, you’ve got a few spots back here. Did you know about that?”

  Ray’s eyes open wide and she examines herself in the mirror. “What do you mean?”

  “A few bald spots.” Sylvia discreetly holds up a hand mirror and shows Ray the two bare places in the back of her head. Her scalp looks as pale as can be with all of that black hair around it.

  Ray shakes her head in disbelief. “Put that away,” she says to Sylvia, who puts it down immediately and begins resuming the cut.

  Ray feels the familiar flash of heat coming on. This one starts in the top of her head where Sylvia is tugging and clipping, and it works its way down to the pit of her stomach. How could she have missed this?

  “Need some water?” Sylvia says.

  Ray nods her head.

  Sylvia pulls a water bottle out of the fridge near her station and when she hands it to Ray she whispers, “It’s perfectly normal at our age.” Then she nods toward the manicure station and says, “My sister Trudi has them, and so did our daddy. It tends to run in the family. Was your daddy bald?”

  “Oh,” Ray says. “He died when I was very young, so I don’t know.”

  “Well,” Sylvia says as she teases a large clump of hair on top and says, “It’s easy to cover up for now with the rest of your hair and a little hairspray, but I can find out what Trudi does about hers. She takes some kind of women’s Rogaine or something. I’ll let you know next week.”

  “Thank you, Sylvia,” Ray says. She puts her fingers up to the back of her head and feels her scalp. Sylvia pulls Ray’s hand gently away and says, “Don’t give it another thought. I’ll cover it up good for tonight.”

  This menopause is a nightmare, Ray thinks. She’s got hair popping up in places she doesn’t want it to, and she’s losing it in places she desperately needs it. It’s like her body is against her. Snuffing out her womanhood before she has time to blink.

  With a new hairdo and a fresh manicure, Ray and Carson race home. Ray changes into her new outfit, comes down the stairs, and vamps for her boys. “Here it is.”

  The outfit is so unlike her, but Cousin Willy never seems to have an opinion about clothes and he says in earnest, “It’s nice. Real nice.”

  “And different,” Justin adds. “All that brown and orange reminds me of camouflage.”

  Ray smiles and shakes her head. “Camouflage? Is hunting all you ever think about?”

  “Nope,” he says as Cousin Willy hands him a stick of summer sausage to slice. “I think about fishing too.”

  She flaps her hands at them.

  “You’ve got to come fishing with us sometime, Ray,” Cousin Willy says. “We’ll blindfold you on the way, of course.”

  Justin laughs. Ray doesn’t know if Willy is kidding or not, and she can tell by the funny way Justin is tilting his head that he doesn’t know either.

  Miss C. is in the backyard greeting everyone with a cone-shaped birthday hat and several birthday blowers in her concrete basket. She looks like a beauty pageant contestant with a red sash tied across one shoulder and down to the opposite hip that reads, “Ray’s Big Day!”

  “Hey, hey!” Kitty B. says as she and LeMar come through the back deck and set the birthday cake on the counter. She’s made Ray’s favorite—her seven-layer coconut cake—and she’s also made a peanut butter pie and a bowl of banana pudding.

  “Good gracious, Kitty B.,” Cousin Willy says. “That all looks so good!”

  LeMar nods and pats his head with a handkerchief.

  “How are you feeling?” Ray asks him.

  “Not too bad,” he says as he shakes Willy’s and Justin’s hands.

  Kitty B. whispers to Ray, “The MRI was clear again. Surprise, surprise.”

  Then Sis comes right through the kitchen door with her seven-layer dip and chips. “Great outfit, Ray.”

  Ray spins around for the gals. “Can I can pull it off?”

  “Uh-huh,” Kitty B. says. “Where did you get it?”

  “Carson got it for me today in Charleston,” she says, and just then her son and daughter-in-law come down the stairs and into the kitchen looking like the most handso
me couple you ever saw.

  William sports olive pants and a white oxford shirt with his initials on the chest pocket, and Carson is in fancy blue jeans and a silky brown poncho with lots of tassels. She’s got on these pointed high heels that will sink right into the soft ground as soon as she steps foot in the backyard. Now Ray envisions Carson with her heel stuck in the mud in the barbeque buffet line. She hopes she won’t sprain her ankle, but she doesn’t feel like it’s her place to tell her to change shoes.

  “Well, who do we have here?” Kitty B. says as she runs to embrace them.

  “Don’t y’all look wonderful,” Sis says, following behind her.

  “Indeed,” LeMar says, putting his hanky back in his pocket and shaking William’s hand.

  Cousin Willy leads everyone through the deck and into the backyard to the beverage table, where he’s got cans of beer in barrels and cups of iced tea so sweet it will curl your hair.

  When the pack is outside chatting, Rev. Capers shows up with a nice bottle of wine. Willy has hired his favorite bluegrass band, Three-Legged Pig, from Columbia and they’ve set up on a little stage he built by the edge of the creek. Kitty B. has brought her dogs, and Justin lets Tuxedo out, and they sniff around the yard together. Then Trudi and Angus show up, and Sylvia and her boyfriend Bubber, and R.L. and Mayor Whaley and Opal Dowdy and Cricket and Tommy and the rest of the friends and family on the list.

  When everyone’s gathered together and they’re just finishing the blessing, Cousin Willy squeezes her hand. “Will you looky here, Ray?” He nods in the direction of the driveway, where Priscilla and Donovan smile at her behind the white picket fence.

  Priscilla waves both arms over her head. “Hi, Mama!”

  “Oh, what a surprise!” Ray grabs her cheeks and runs toward them. “When did you get here, sweetheart?”

  Priscilla kisses Ray on the cheek, grabs the tips of her elbows. “We just flew in.”

  Ray squeezes her daughter tightly and then pats Donovan on the back. “Well, come on in, come on in and get yourself a beer.”

  “Mama, you look fabulous,” Priscilla says as Cousin Willy comes over and hugs her tight before giving Donovan a firm handshake.

  “Happy birthday, Mrs. Montgomery,” Donovan says. His cheeks are rosy and he’s just adorable. He’s so tailored and clean-cut that it’s hard for Ray to imagine he’s a Democrat. Anyway, he is just precious in his barn jacket and khaki pants and penny loafers. He’s got this short hair parted on the side and these big green eyes with long dark lashes and furry eyebrows.

  “Howdy, Sis,” William says with Carson standing right behind him.

  “One afternoon back in Jasper, and he’s already talking like a country boy,” Carson jokes. “Better look out, Donovan.”

  William gives his sister a tight squeeze and says, “Let’s dance,” and Ray watches as he leads her out to the dance floor and spins her around to the twang of the banjo.

  Maybe this trip back home will rekindle William’s love for the place where he grew up. Where the air is clear and the light is bright. Where southern hospitality thrives and folks pour all they’ve got into their social occasions, even such an inconsequential one as her turning fifty-five. It will be such a shame if neither of her children ever moves back home. Makes her wonder if she ever should have sent them off to those fancy, overpriced out-of-state colleges in the first place.

  After everyone eats, LeMar takes the microphone from the band and sings “Happy Birthday” to Ray. Then Kitty B. brings out the coconut cake with sparkler candles. After Ray opens what she assumes is the last present, Willy brings out a huge box wrapped in coral and pink stripes with a big white bow.

  The band stops and everyone gathers around as Ray gently tears open the paper. At the edge of the box she sees the gray and pointed tip of an antler, and she shrieks and jumps into Justin’s arms. Willy opens it the rest of the way, and Ray sees it is the enormous head of a buck mounted on a white-striped wooden panel with a little plaque below his head.

  First Deer of the Season Ray Jones Montgomery August 15, 2005

  Ray doesn’t know whether to scowl or weep, though everyone around her claps and cheers.

  “Thought we could put it up at the beach house,” Willy says.

  “Mmm,” Ray says. “We’ll see about that.”

  “You won it fair and square, Aunt Ray,” Justin says. “You got the first one of the season with the grill of your pretty green car.”

  Ray laughs as the band starts back up and the guests begin to dance again.

  Now no outdoor party is complete—at least in the men’s eyes—without some sort of fire that everyone sits around. So Willy and Justin light a small bonfire that they built earlier in the day. Ray and the gals sit around it in the lawn furniture and start telling old stories about the watermelons and the dances and jumping off the old Macon Bridge into the Edisto River.

  Capers sits by Sis and chats awhile with her, and just when Kitty B. offers to give her a lift home, he says, “I’ll walk you home, Sis.”

  Sis’s eyes glisten in the fire. “Okay,” she says.

  “All right.” Kitty B. tries to keep her cool as Rhetta nips at her ankle. “That’s a fine idea!”

  As the folks Ray’s age begin to say their good-byes, Carson and William amble out on the dock with Donovan and Priscilla, where Justin has set up the Chiminea and started their own fire. Cricket and Tommy join them, and so do Marshall and Katie Rae.

  Like grade school children, they move their flashlights around the creek in search of the alligator. The boys chuckle and the girls shriek with fear and delight as the light hits an old stump on the edge of the marsh. Ray loves the sound of their banter as it wafts over the creek and back toward the house.

  That night as Ray turns on the television and waits for Cousin Willy to give her a turn in the bathroom, she comes across J.K. Neely on the television as she flips through the channels.

  “Look!” she calls to Willy. “It’s Poop 2!”

  Willy peers around the corner with the toothbrush in his mouth.

  “Same old imbecile,” he says, and they both watch Poop 2 climb up in some kind of enormous slingshot where he will be pulled back and launched over some muddy lake in Tennessee.

  They gawk at him as his cohorts snap the sling and his body is hurled out over the water. He flails his arms and legs in midair for several seconds until he does a belly flop into the lake. Ray is thankful, oh so thankful, that he is launched out of Priscilla’s life for good.

  Now she pictures the gardenias whose buds are just beginning to form secretly behind the shed as she peers out of the bedroom window and listens to her children chuckling around the bonfires with their significant others. She thinks of Capers walking Sis on home, and she hopes Vangie Dreggs tootled by in her golf cart earlier in the evening as the sound of the bluegrass band and the rising voices surely sent her the message.

  There’s not a thing in this world that could ruin this moment for Ray. Not a hot flash, not a trip to Dr. Arhundati, not even the fact that her hair is falling out in clumps or that her children live too far away with no plans to return. Sometimes she worries that time is passing by faster than she ever thought it would. Other times she fears she’ll wake up one day only to realize she is older and weaker than she ever imagined. Or that her friends will finally see her for the farce she is—a bastard girl, the daughter of a housekeeper, who has no right to be the First Lady of Jasper. But she shoves all of that to the side for tonight. It’s a celebration, after all. It’s her moment to revel, and she knows she would be a fool not to savor it.

  Ray tiptoes to the bathroom and puts her arms around Willy’s hips as he swooshes mouthwash around in his puffed cheeks.

  “Thank you,” she says as she squeezes him tight. “Thank you for a wonderful birthday.”

  She rests her chin on his soft, bare shoulder and gives him that knowing look in the bathroom mirror. He wipes his mouth and turns to face her, and she leads him to the bed where she
turns off the lights, and they quietly make love as the moonlight glistens on Round-O Creek and their grown children talk and laugh around the fire on the dock in their backyard.

  The next day, after Ray feeds the kids a hearty breakfast and gets them headed on their way back home, she goes over her notes for a wedding session with the gals that Sis will host in her apartment this afternoon. Time is ticking on Katie Rae and Marshall’s wedding, and there is a lot that needs to be pulled together in the next week—namely the ordering of the invitations and the guest list—if they are ever going to make it.

  When the doorbell rings, she thinks it’s probably no one as usual. These days the testy thing is activated by almost any large truck barreling down the road. Willy has got to fix it! It rings twice more before she realizes someone must really be at the door.

  “Hi, Ray,” Vangie Dreggs says. She stands there all polished and painted in a white fur vest and cream wool pants, her big white horse teeth grinning. Little Bit is sniffing around Ray’s topiary, and Vangie shakes a big box wrapped in shiny silver paper that says “Happy Birthday” across it.

  “Hello, Vangie.” Ray is shocked at the sight of her.

  “Well, I just wanted to drop a little something off for you.”

  “Thank you,” Ray says. She doesn’t want to ask her in, but Vangie just stands there, smiling and shifting her weight from side to side, and Ray doesn’t see how she can avoid it.

  “Can’t you come in for a cup of coffee on the piazza?” she says. “I’d love to,” Vangie says. “I hope the party was a grand success.” She picks Little Bit up and follows Ray through the dining room to the kitchen. “I’ll just put him in the backyard.”

  “Good,” Ray says, and she pours her a cup of coffee.

  Little Bit barks all around the yard nipping at Tuxedo’s tail in an effort to rouse him as Vangie sits on the porch sipping coffee and asking Ray in detail about the party: who was there, what were the presents, how were the kids, wasn’t she surprised. How does she know so much? The gall! This woman is a scandal. She can somehow break every rule in the etiquette book and continue on in life. It’s obscene.