Family Linen

by Lee Smith

  “How bad is she showing?” Judith Wilkes asked, on the afternoon of the wedding, about Karen. Not that it was any of Judith Wilkes’s business, but she went to high school with Karen, so she thought she ought to know. Candy started to say something sharp to her, which she never does to her ladies, but she had a clippie in her mouth right then and by the time she got it out, she had thought better of it, and said, “Right much.” Why not? Everybody knew it anyway. Myrtle and Don had decided on a small poolside wedding, mostly family, under the circumstances, but everybody in town knew the circumstances by then, just like they knew about Jewell Rife’s bones found down in the well and Fay dying out at the One Stop in Clinus’s Chevrolet. Not only did they know it, but they had just about forgotten it by then, especially since that young nurse was raped not a foot from her own apartment a week ago Tuesday, and the guy that did it was still at large. This was at the London Bridge apartments off the bypass, next to the new public library. The apartments with the fancy bridge across the creek and the red double-decker bus that runs back and forth to town. It’s mostly singles that live out there. If it was family-oriented, as Martha Rockbridge said, somebody would have been home, would have been around, and seen it. But those apartments discourage families, and pets. Anyway, now everybody was talking about the rape, and even Karen Dotson pregnant was old hat. She’d been home, and she’d been showing, for over a month. Myrtle and Don might as well have had it at the country club and invited everybody. There’s no such thing as a little bit pregnant anyway. Those that didn’t know it, would. And then they’d forget about that, too, in time, and get onto something else. That’s the way folks are.

  The only one interested was Judith Wilkes, because she went to high school with Karen, and because she’s never done much of anything since. Judith Wilkes lives with her mother who has arthritis, and teaches home ec at the high school, and that’s it. That’s the story of Judith Wilkes. She was jealous. Candy felt sorry for her, so she gave in and told her some more about it, while she put in Judith’s body wave. Candy said that Karen was close to five months pregnant, and that after the wedding she was going right back to Winston-Salem where she had been living with her boyfriend, who is a computer genius, for three years, and finish up her degree in folklore from UNC-G, and then stay home with the baby for a while before she started to look for a teaching job. Candy said Karen’s fiancé made plenty of money, so she didn’t have to work. “I’ll bet he does!” Judith said. Her eyes popped out a little, she looks like a Pekingese.

  Candy was wrapping the rollers in end wraps. All she ever uses for permanents is Zotoz Warm and Gentle, that’s the best.

  “Are they going to live in the same place they lived in when they were living together?” Judith wanted to know then, and Candy said yes.

  “I just wouldn’t want to do that,” Judith said. She sucked in her breath, a habit she has. Candy put the plastic bag over her head and pinned it tight in the back, and took her over and gave her some heat. She set the timer for ten minutes. You have to be careful if it’s an old lady or somebody with high blood pressure, you can’t set the heat up so high. But Candy was trying to rush Judith a little without her noticing it, so she could close up and get to the wedding herself. And so Judith could get on back to her mother, poor thing—Candy doesn’t like to do her too much, anyway, because she’s the kind that won’t let herself look good, scared to try anything new. With those pop eyes, she needs some hair down on her forehead, and around her face, and not that tight curly look she’s had for so long. Well, some people want to look good, and some don’t. It hurts Candy, though, to give somebody a permanent or a cut and have it not look good, and send them out on the street not looking any better than they did when they came in. It’s not right. She has dreams about it.

  An oval face is the perfect face, but Candy can count on the fingers of one hand the ladies she does that have got one. Most times, nature needs help. Like if they’ve got a round face, you want to give them some height on top of the head, and flat around the ears. A square face, and you lift it up off the forehead, bring it forward at the sides and jaw. A prominent chin—go for bangs.

  Take Sybill. Candy had done Sybill at ten o’clock that morning, and done her friend Betty, too, who had come down to the wedding with her, and Sybill went out looking like a million bucks. Sybill never looked better in her life. The reason was, she came in acting real friendly—Candy was surprised when she called in the first place—and said, “Okay, Candy, here’s your chance. I’m just tired of it,” which is exactly what you always want to hear, and almost never happens. First Candy got Lydia to shampoo her good, and put on a Spun Sand rinse, Roux Fancifull, it’s old but nothing ever has come along yet to equal it for color. That was to blend in the gray and soften her. Then Candy feathered it all around her face, and blew it dry instead of using rollers, and showed her how to do it herself, and sold her a round brush so she could. Sybill was smiling at herself in the mirror. Candy turned her around and showed her the back. “Well, what do you think?” Sybill asked her friend Betty, and Betty said, “Girl, you’ve never looked better in your life.” It was true. Sybill looked ten years younger. Then Candy gave Sybill’s friend Betty a deep side part, to offset that long thin nose, and she looked good, too. Then both of them went on up to Myrtle’s to help with the flowers and other decorations.

  Myrtle and Don say Sybill’s been a real big help with the wedding. She always did know how things ought to be, exactly like Miss Elizabeth. Sybill knows for instance whether or not bridesmaids can wear big hats at a seven-o’clock wedding. They can. So Sybill got these beautiful picture hats made at Thalhimer’s, in Roanoke, for the bridesmaids, and brought them down in her car. Everybody in the beauty shop went out and looked at the hats, in the parking lot behind the drugstore, before Betty and Sybill took them up to Myrtle’s.

  Candy had done over Myrtle the week before. Myrtle had wanted some more Ash Blonde mixed in with the Golden Blonde, so the gray would start showing through. A new look, since she’s going to be a grandmother. But the one Candy really wanted to get her hands on, and didn’t, was Karen, the bride. Karen hasn’t cut her hair in about three years, it’s stringing all down her back and looks awful. It’s too thin for her to wear it that long. Candy would take off about a foot of it if she got a chance to, and give her a blunt cut. Also those split ends are going to get worse and worse as her time comes on—all the protein in your body goes straight to the baby. Still, Karen is pretty, she’s always had a glow about her, like Myrtle.

  Candy did two more shampoo and sets that afternoon, waiting for Judith to take, but she takes slow, and then Miss Elva Pope sailed in like the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa María all rolled into one, to get her hair combed. Miss Elva comes in once a day for Candy to do this, she says it hurts her arm to lift a brush. And every three weeks, Candy shampoos her. She won’t get it done any more often than that because she thinks it’ll give her bronchitis. When she comes in to get her hair combed, it might be any hour of the day, and she expects Candy to drop everything, and fit her in. But she is a sweet old lady, who was Miss Elizabeth’s friend. So Candy got Judith Wilkes out from under the dryer and had her sit there until she finished up Florence Hatfield who has been getting the same French twist for twenty years, she’s another one that you just hate to see walk out the door and own up to doing her, and Florence Hatfield’s ten-year-old granddaughter Beth that she is raising since her mother—that’s Florence’s daughter—has fallen into a depression.

  “You wait right here,” Candy said to Judith and Florence, “while I finish up on little Beth here and comb Miss Elva.”

  “That hurts,” Beth said, which was not true, as Candy flipped her bangs. When Candy was done with Beth, she looked as cute as she could, and Florence gave her two quarters to go up to the Rexall for a Coke. Candy has her own Coke machine right here, but she figured Florence wanted to get rid of Beth for fifteen minutes. Florence is real sweet, but there
’s a limit to everything. You like to feel like you can say what you want, in the beauty parlor. Then Lydia took out Florence’s rollers while Candy did Miss Elva.

  Miss Elva held her chin up high and looked hard at herself in the mirror. She’s a kind of a fierce old lady, like Miss Elizabeth was. Nobody knows how old she is, or what she does with herself outside of church and the ladies’ poetry society and coming over here once a day to get her hair combed. She has wispy blue curls all over.

  “For the wedding,” Miss Elva announced, “I shall wear pink.”

  “That’s a good color for you,” Candy said, fluffing her up in the back to cover her bald spot.

  Florence said that in her opinion, Karen Dotson was going to have a girl. She said she could always tell, and hadn’t been wrong once. She said that the way she does it is, if you can tell somebody’s pregnant from behind, it’s a girl. You carry a boy up high in the front, and he doesn’t wrap all around you like a girl will.

  “That’s ridiculous, ” said Miss Elva, snorting through her long nose. “It’s all in the hands of God.”

  “Well, you can also tell by amniocentesis,” Judith said. “That’s when they take a needle and—”

  “I know what it is!” snapped Miss Elva. “A crime against nature, a sin against God. That looks real pretty,” she said to Candy in the mirror, and gave her a quarter, which is what she does every day. But Candy wouldn’t care if she was paid or not. Then Miss Elva went zooming out. Lydia was giggling, she’d been giggling all day long. Candy was pushing it by then, she had to go home and change, she’d be lucky to get to the wedding at all, never mind cleaning up the shop. She got Florence up in the chair and started to comb her out.

  “What are you giggling about?” she said to Lydia. Lydia is so thin and gawky, she looks like somebody drew her with a pencil.

  “Well . . . ” Lydia said. Lydia always says “Well . . . ” through her nose, and stretches it out real long. It’ll kill you to talk to her. “Well, I forgot to tell you that Kate came in here while you were gone up to Myrtle’s at lunch, and got me to take a piece right here, in the top of her crown, and dye it pink.”

  “Dye it pink!” Candy said. She dropped her brush on the floor.

  “Unh-huh,” Lydia said. She was sweeping up hair, and cutting her eyes over at Candy, and giggling and looking guilty.

  “Well, did you do it?” Candy asked.

  “Unh-huh,” Lydia said.

  “I bet it looks awful,” said Florence.

  “It’s the ‘in’ thing,” Lydia told her. “Everybody’s doing it, look at Vogue.”

  “Myrtle is going to just die.” Candy was getting tickled herself.

  “Now, who did this?” Florence wanted to know, and Candy said it was Lacy’s daughter, her niece, and Judith said was that the weird one, that wore the hat.

  “Hats are ‘in,’ too,” Lydia said.

  “Well, I never!” said Florence. She kept twisting this way and that, looking at Lydia. Candy thought she’d never get her done. She decided she’d just go on and close up the shop after she finished with Judith, and then come back in here after the wedding to straighten up. She knew she wouldn’t get any more work out of Lydia that day, she was too flighty. “You go on, hon,” Candy told her, and then she finished Florence, who was outlining another theory of hers that if you exercise too much during pregnancy your baby won’t have pretty features, but Candy wasn’t listening, thinking back on her own wedding which took place in a JP’s kitchen in Cheraw, South Carolina, under a bare hanging lightbulb on a string. Candy was pregnant, too. And it was winter. She wore a red wool skirt and a cardigan sweater set. Lonnie was just a kid. They were both kids, Lonnie was a kid when he died. At least she has Tammy Lee, who has his eyes. And then there was Gray Justice who said he’d marry her, and didn’t, and is now a lawyer someplace in east Tennessee. Candy was thinking, It could of been worse. At least when I was at my wits’ end Darnell Blossom, who had the Beauty Barn then, said, “Well, Candy, why don’t you come in with me, you have always been good with hair.” I have, too. I am. But I believe one wedding was enough for me. And speaking of weddings, Candy remembered all of a sudden that Tony should have been here by now—he was coming in for Karen’s wedding, driving up from Florida with a new girlfriend for them to meet. A law student, just like Tony—well, girls do everything these days. Candy’s all for it. She doesn’t even object to men doing hair, fags or not, fags have got to make a living the same as anybody else. A lot of beauticians resent it, but Candy doesn’t. She thinks a person ought to do what they’re good at. Finally Lydia left, and Florence settled down, and Candy covered up her eyes and sprayed her. She went out the door hollering for Beth.

  That left Judith Wilkes, who sucked in her breath and said, “Well, I think a person ought to get done at a reasonable hour if they take the trouble to make an appointment.”

  Candy just smiled at her. “Relax, honey,” she said. “You’re not going anywhere.”

  And the wedding goes off without a hitch. It’s just perfect! All the things that might happen, don’t—Karen likes the bridesmaids’ hats, for instance, when they arrive in tissue paper in the back seat of Sybill’s car, along with Sybill herself, and thank God Myrtle ordered them, since they cover up the top of Kate’s head. Karen didn’t want hats for the wedding, didn’t even particularly want a wedding—she and Karl, her boyfriend, spelled with a K, said they would rather take the money and buy a new Apple computer and two bikes, but Myrtle has convinced her older daughter to give in and be gracious, since after all she is pregnant, and so she ought to want to please her daddy. Even the thunderstorm which was forecast for 6 p.m. has failed to materialize, the very threat of it reduced to whimsy, to an extravagant puffy pile of pink clouds around the sunset, clouds that look exactly as though they have been expressly ordered for Karen’s wedding. And Dr. Don is not only pleased, he’s delighted, standing by the punch bowl with his arm around his wife. Of course it’s a huge expense, when you think about it—an Apple computer and two bikes wouldn’t begin to cover the cost of a wedding. And in a way, it’s crazy to spend six weeks getting ready for something that takes ten minutes. But Don wanted Karen to have a proper start in life, he believes in that, and his heart swelled to bursting when he walked her around the side of the pool to where Karl stood with that young Episcopal rector whose name he can never remember but who certainly knows how to do things right. Of course Don wishes they had stuck to the prayerbook, but once Karen and Karl gave in to the idea of a wedding at all, Don didn’t quibble. And the poem Theresa wrote for the occasion was pretty enough, although Kate and Lacy told Myrtle it was “sappy.” Well, why not? This is not Chapel Hill. This is Booker Creek, where Don and Myrtle will live for the rest of their lives in this house on the hill at the end of town, and even Myrtle likes it now.

  Her big glass coffee table looks wonderful in the living room for instance, along with the antique wing chair and the Chinese screen and the stereo system tastefully built into what used to be the bookcase. Her wicker set looks wonderful on the screen porch, which used to be the cold-pantry, the overhead fan turning lazily around and stirring the leaves of the hanging ferns and the trailing begonias. Myrtle has begun to speak knowledgeably of crown molding and pie safes, and has been heard to say that an old home should be “maintained rather than restored.” She has also decided to go into real estate, just as soon as she gets this wedding over with. Why not? She clearly has a knack for it, it’s fun, all those years of home-making have paid off, she knows just what a woman looks for in a house. Plus she can talk to anybody. Myrtle, staring up at the pink fleeting wispy clouds turning darker now as the sunset fades and night comes on, cannot quite recall whatever she must have been thinking of, or how she felt last year. In her mind’s eye she sees Gary Vance for an instant, like a tiny man viewed through the wrong end of a telescope, in his strange white suit against the darkening sky.