Emma nodded slightly, to indicate she heard.
“I think you might want to ask yourself where your relationship with John Cole fits into your life. Where do you want your marriage to fit in?”
With a short smile, Catherine then rose and moved to her desk, saying, “Just something you might want to think about for the next few weeks. I’m going to be out of town and won’t be back until the middle of next month.”
Emma followed her with her eyes, but was still sitting on the edge of the couch when Catherine turned to ask if she might want a morning or afternoon the next time.
When she came out of the counseling clinic, a woman was going in. Coincidentally, she was the woman who had sat crying so hard in the waiting room the first time Emma and John Cole had come to the offices. Emma felt a little shocked sensation to see her. The woman’s eyes carefully avoided Emma, who experienced the silly urge to say to her, “You’d better get in there quick. She’s going out of town.”
Holding tight to her keys, Emma walked swiftly to her car, got in and sat there for a moment, reading the date on the appointment card Catherine had given her. Then, dropping the card into her purse, she started the car and drove to the Berry Truck Stop and offices.
Shelley Dilks wasn’t at her desk, and the door to John Cole’s office was closed. Emma went to it and, hand on the knob, heard the murmur of voices inside. Giving a light knock, she entered.
John Cole looked up from behind his desk. Shelley Dilks sat beside him and looked up, too, as did two other men sitting near the desk.
“No one was out here,” Emma said. She stopped in the doorway.
John Cole rose, and made quick introductions to the two men, who didn’t get up but did shift to face her and replied politely. She felt as unwelcome as if she had intruded into the careful planning of a robbery or something.
“We’re in a meeting,” John Cole said. “Is it important?”
“Oh, no. I was just passin’ and stopped in. I’ll see you later.” She smiled cordially to everyone and retreated.
Shelley Dilks had risen and came out of the office with her, closing the door behind them. “It’s a meetin’ with the bankers,” she said in a low voice. “They’re makin’ the final arrangements for the new store.” She remained at the closed door, with her hand behind her on the knob.
“Oh. That’s right. I forgot,” Emma said, not wanting to give the impression that she knew nothing about it. Had John Cole said anything about a new store? She didn’t think so.
Shelley Dilks asked if Emma wanted to leave a message. Emma said no, repeating that she had stopped on the spur of the moment. “I was just goin’ to talk to John Cole about the pool,” she added, feeling the need to come up with a bona fide reason.
As she left, she saw Shelley Dilks slip back into John Cole’s office to rejoin the important meeting, about which Emma had not known, and in which she had no part.
Returning through the store area toward the front doors, she passed by the aisle of toiletries and over-the-counter medications. This section was one of the most profitable in the store, providing necessary items to many truckers on a long haul. For some reason this information crossed Emma’s mind quite prominently, as giving testament to her knowledge about the business.
She ran her eyes over the items arranged on the shelving. The packaging of many things was quite different from what she remembered. She straightened toothbrushes and tubes of hemorrhoid cream, then took a package of aspirin from a hook. Going to the refrigerated section for a bottle of water, she found the water had been moved to the far end. Or maybe she just didn’t remember correctly, she thought, as she went to the checkout, where she stood in line behind an enormous man in a black leather vest—how could he stand it in the heat?—and a tiny woman with bright red hair.
When it came her turn, Emma stepped up to the counter, where a clerk she did not know rang up her bill. “Any fuel?” the girl asked with a perfunctory smile.
“No.” Emma looked at the girl’s face, trying to remember knowing her. She could not recall when she had last bought anything from the store. She had not been around any of the employees since the New Year’s Eve party they always held at their home.
Just then a voice rang out. “Hi, Miz Berry! How’re you doin’ today?”
“Hello, Cherry,” Emma said with warmth, foolishly happy at seeing someone she knew and at being recognized. “I’m fine…and you?” She had been the one to hire Cherry and help to train her. Her mind calculated the years. Fifteen? She couldn’t look at it.
She asked about the woman’s children and talked so long that she was embarrassed to see the woman finally edge herself away.
“I’ve got to check on the diesel that was just delivered, Miz Berry. Good seein’ you.”
Emma went out to her car, downed two aspirin and drove home. Halfway there she realized that she had forgotten to stop at the print shop to order the shower invitations. A mile from her house, she realized that she could not recall making two necessary turns. She really needed to get home and stay off the road.
Yet she passed her driveway, and went into Valentine and to the drugstore, where she was grateful to find Belinda sitting on her mother’s tall stool behind the counter. The lunch crowd had pretty much cleared out. Emma sat on a stool and ordered a barbeque sandwich and glass of cold tea. A few people she knew from the fire department auxiliary and chamber of commerce came and went. Emma finished her sandwich and had two refills on her tea, and kept on sitting there. She wanted to discuss with Belinda the subjects that Catherine had brought up, namely her behavior in regard to Johnny and smoothing over the difficulty with Sylvia, and the implication that she was slipshod or something of that nature in her marriage. She was now not at all certain what Catherine had been saying and thought her friend might be able to help her sort this out.
Yet for some reason, she could not bring up the subject but chatted on instead about her greeting cards, and the town news that Belinda intended for her new radio spot, and shopping and the weather.
Finally she did come out with, “Do you think I interfered in Johnny’s life when I went up to see Sylvia?”
Belinda barely blinked. “Oh, yes, of course it was buttin’ in, but it worked, didn’t it?”
“It seems to have come out all right.” Emma went on to tell about her therapy session, and Catherine’s questions about Emma’s motives and handling of the matter.
Belinda, by then having come around and sat herself down on the stool beside Emma, since they were alone, gave her opinion, which was that there were times when interfering was necessary. “These days, people make a religion out of stayin’ out of everyone’s business. But there are times when we can do a small thing that helps. When we’re older and a little wiser, it is our responsibility to speak up.”
“That’s how I see it. I don’t intend to run their lives, but they needed a little help. It was all of our lives that would have eventually been affected,” she said, suddenly thinking of it. “All because of a misconception on Sylvia’s part, and I was the best one to address it.”
“The point was a larger truth, and that of Johnny and Gracie’s welfare,” said Belinda.
“Well, that’s how I saw it. I suppose it is a case-by-case basis, though.”
Belinda agreed with this, and then they had to stop the intimate conversation because Naomi Smith, the pastor’s wife, came in to get three milkshakes to go and to sell raff le tickets for a chance to win VIP tickets to the Glorious Women’s seminar. “These are not chances to win,” Naomi said. “We don’t call them that. We call them tickets for a drawing to raise money for a good cause.”
Emma and Belinda each said they would buy four tickets for the good cause. Then Emma was embarrassed to discover she had only two dollars in her purse, so Belinda paid for hers, too.
When she drove home, she made an effort to keep her mind on her driving and to go slowly. She was very glad that she did, because as she drove down Church Street, Will
ie Lee and his dog and another little dark-haired boy ran across the street in front of her. She likely would have had plenty of time to stop—Willie Lee got to the curb and turned to wave at her before she was fully past—but still, she was reminded of what could happen when she wasn’t paying attention.
It occurred to her that sometimes a person’s attention was drawn in many directions at once. It was simply the way of life and could no more be stopped than the shadows at evening.
When John Cole arrived home, she was in the kitchen, with photographs from a box spread out across the table. She chose half a dozen snapshots of her and John Cole in their early years together. She lined them up and put her face close. She studied them, trying to recall the circumstances under which each one had been taken.
The phone rang. It was Johnny, who said he had gotten her message and reported that he had already requested that Gracie remind Sylvia about the information his grandmother needed.
Emma said, “Your grandma says to be sure and tell Sylvia that she will get the photographs copied and will return them.”
“Okay…I’ll have Gracie tell her,” Johnny replied.
Emma imagined their future, with Gracie running herself ragged back and forth between Johnny and Sylvia.
As if in response to this thought, he then added, “But Gracie’s mom won’t be able to send the pictures right away, because she’s decided to stay out here at least another week.”
“Oh, really?” Of course, there was no reason why Emma should care about this. None at all.
“Yeah. You know Gracie’s girlfriends are givin’ her that weddin’ shower, so her mom is stayin’ for that, and to go shoppin’ and stuff. She moved over to Gracie’s apartment from the hotel this afternoon.” There was a small note of resignation in his voice at this part of it.
Emma said in an upbeat tone that this was wonderful for both women, and Johnny said, “Yeah, it is.”
Unable to help herself—and it was the polite thing, after all—Emma inquired about Wadley. Just what Wadley’s actions would say about him and Sylvia she could not say, but she was interested.
Johnny explained that Wadley had already flown back to Baltimore, because of some business, but that maybe he would return to get Sylvia. “He said he sure liked Grama,” Johnny added with laughter in his voice.
“I’ll have to tell her. She’ll be thrilled.”
They exchanged a few more bits of conversation and then said goodbye.
Directly after hanging up, Emma called her mother to tell her what Johnny had said about Wadley liking her. Her mother was, as she had expected, thrilled. While Emma was enjoying being the bearer of good news, she went on to say that she had succeeded in getting a reminder to Sylvia about the promised photographs and information for her mother’s album project. Then she had to dampen this pleasure somewhat, when she explained about Sylvia extending her visit, which obviously meant a delay in producing the photographs.
Her mother took this news with some irritation, as if Emma should or even could do something about it. Having expected this, Emma deflected the irritation by saying that she had found young photographs of herself and John Cole, as her mother had requested. They spoke for some minutes about the propensity of her mother’s people for picture-taking. Emma had found a number of snapshots of her mother and herself as a baby, and a number of her mother’s aunts and uncles, taken by her Grandmother Maisie.
“I found two of Daddy,” she told her mother. “You really need to put one in the kids’ album. It won’t be complete if you don’t include him.”
“Oh, all right—the smallest one,” said her mother.
After saying goodbye, Emma gathered a number of the pictures and carried them into her workroom. There she turned on her drawing-table light and stuck the photographs up on the slanted table for ease of viewing. Pulling out a round magnifying glass, she peered over them like Miss Marple looking for clues.
21
Pictures of the Early Years
1966—1970
Within the first weeks of their marriage, they excitedly bought a fancy, expensive camera. John Cole had raved over a camera that a buddy of his aboard ship had bought, and four times he dragged Emma down to the Navy Exchange to gaze at one just like it in the showcase, while extolling the camera’s virtues and asking Emma if she wanted it and thought they should buy it.
This was to be a pattern that repeated itself. John Cole often wanted Emma to make decisions about matters in which he felt uncertain. That way, if the choice turned out to be a poor one, he did not have to feel responsible. He could blame Emma. It took Emma years to see that this was happening, and even when she did realize the pattern, she did not pay it any attention. Making decisions was her natural inclination. She was simply doing what she had learned in her family, which was that the women were supposed to run the show. Even the men in her family had believed this, and had not appreciated it when their women didn’t keep things going along.
Later, when she came to live in the midst of the Berry family, she was amazed at the autocratic manner of the men. It was simply the reverse of what she had known, John Cole once said, but she argued that it was not true. None of the women of her family were convinced of their rightness simply because of their sex. They relied on their intellect and experience.
In the Berry family, Pop Berry was king. His sons were his princes, although kings in their own households. The women of the family were the servants, although Mother Berry was queen of her daughter, daughters-in-law and granddaughters.
John Cole was somewhat the exception. That he did not run Emma ragged made him instantly suspicious. John Cole had several strikes against him. He was the youngest in a family where age determined placement, and the only one to have one go at high-school football and not like it. He turned out to be the only one to go into the Navy and spend six years away from home, and to end up married to a woman from a totally different state and different background, and a Methodist, which might as well been a different religion entirely. His family rather treated him as if they did not know what to do with him. They did not trust him. His every decision came under constant scrutiny.
The Berrys generally found things lacking everywhere, in people, in circumstances and in money. They worried so much about the latter that Pop Berry at one time kept an enormous amount of cash hidden in a coffee can buried underneath the garage. Emma had been shocked when she learned this. She asked what would happen if the garage burned. This produced a lot of discussion about how much the ground would protect the money from heat. A few nights later, when she got up to go to the bathroom in their apartment over said garage, she looked out the window and saw Pop Berry below, approaching with a shovel. She watched and could see little, but could hear scraping. Sometime later, she saw him walk back to the house. She had always wondered where he moved the money. She also always suspected that the Berry family sometimes regretted that they more or less drove John Cole away. It was plainly evident now that he was by far the most financially astute of the lot. In the past few years, and always late at night, his father called him asking for advice about the hardware store. Likely the older man never told his other two sons of the phone calls.
In the case of the camera—and many other purchases—Emma instantly read John Cole’s face and manner, and knew having it would make him happy. “Yes, get it,” she said each time he asked, and on the fourth time, he did. He enjoyed it immensely for several days; however, it was not one of those point-and-shoot jobs, but had many dials and complications that required reading the instruction booklet. John Cole had no patience for that, so he handed it over to Emma to figure out. He seemed to equally enjoy seeing her work the camera and be in no great hurry to grab it back.
From that time, there were many photographs of John Cole, who was very photogenic, of the little dog they’d had at the time, and of places they went, a number of Emma—who more often than not was captured with an awkward expression, probably because she was instructing John Cole
as he attempted to use the camera—but only a few of Emma and John Cole together. This seemed a curiously telling fact of their existence in those years.
To begin with, asking someone to take their picture with the fancy camera proved daunting because of the detailed instruction required. One had to turn a dial to focus and press a button to measure the light, and then finally press the button to take a picture. Emma would set the camera up, hand it over to the person to take the picture and then run over to join John Cole. She usually came out looking harried in their pictures together, because of the rush.
Then, during the years when John Cole was in the Navy, they lived away from both of their families. There were no automatically available people with them on their excursions, or living next door, to take their picture. During the first months following their wedding, Emma’s mother and Grandmother Maisie had several times made the trip to Norfolk to visit them, and there were a few snapshots of the newly married couple from that time. Grandmother Maisie used her own little Brownie. These shots all had a f lowering bush or tree included in the background; Grandmother Maisie did not feel a photograph complete without a bush or tree.
Their faces were shockingly young. In the few pictures where John Cole wore his Navy uniform, he appeared a little older, but in all of them, Emma looked about twelve. Looking at them in later years, the thought always crossed her mind: What in the world had her mother been thinking to allow her to marry while still a child?
After Emma and John Cole had moved to Florida, however, they were completely on their own. No family came to visit them, and, as inconceivable as it seemed from this distance in time, they had no couple friends. John Cole spent much of the time at sea, where he formed friendships with fellows on the ship. Left alone and at home, Emma made a life of her own, with friendships with neighbors and people at the insurance office where she worked. The two of them formed more or less separate lives, and yet it was this separateness away from family and the places where they had grown up that gave them a strong bond. It was during that abundant time on her own that Emma halfway realized that what she and John Cole shared the most was the desire to be away from their individual families. They were very much like children in a free and happy world for the first time.
Chin Up, Honey Page 20