Maggie Sweet

by Judith Minthorn Stacy

  Later, it hit me, Jerry would probably be at Palomino Joe’s, too. Just thinking about that made the spring cleaning go completely out of my head. I’d pick up the bottle of Windex and suddenly it was time to start supper. At night I’d wake up thinking I was about to smother. Sometimes it got so bad, I’d have to get up and walk the floors. Other nights, I’d just lie awake for hours, listening to the strange pounding of my heart. Every heartbeat seemed to say, “This is it, Maggie Sweet, this is your life. This is it, Maggie Sweet, this is your real life.

  Thursday it came to me that with my feelings so stirred up over Jerry, I had to make Steven go to Palomino Joe’s with me. I needed him glued to my side so no one could forget, even for a minute, that I had a husband—that I was a decent married woman.

  That evening, the minute my courage was up, I barged into the den and blurted, “Steven, why can’t we ever go out to someplace fun?”

  He looked at me like my hair had turned green, and said what he always said, “You always want to do something we can’t afford.”

  I started to remind him about the cemetery plots he’d bought, without a word to me, but I didn’t have the energy. “You never once took me to see Hoyt and Mary Price at the That’lldu. Now they’ve had a big break. They’re the featured act at Palomino Joe’s Saturday and I want to go.”

  Steven snorted. “So that’s it. You know I wouldn’t set foot in a place like that. It’s a waste of time and money. Besides, I don’t even like country-western music.”

  I started to say, I don’t like historical meetings, tombstone rubbings, fund-raising banquets, or mahogany paneling. But I didn’t say anything. I just stared at him.

  He tried to go back to the papers he was grading, but when he saw I wasn’t going anywhere, he sighed, took off his glasses, and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “What’s the matter with you? You’re in the strangest mood lately. I heard you out there talking to yourself.”

  “I wasn’t talking, I was singing. I use to sing all the time. Listen, Steven, Mary Price and Hoyt are my friends and Palomino Joe’s is completely respectable.”

  Steven just rolled his eyes and sighed.

  “If it was Theo Bloodworth asking, you’d go in a heartbeat,” I rushed on. “Now it’s my friends. I want to go. We could have fun. Lord, Steven, don’t you ever want to do something fun? Does life always have to be the same old same old?”

  “Life is the same old same old. I thought you knew that by now. We’re not going and that’s all there is to that. Next thing you’d want a new outfit; the expense would go on and on. Besides, I’m tired. I plan to rest on Saturday,” he said.

  “But this is only Thursday. The opening’s not ’til Saturday. How can you plan to be tired in advance?”

  He put his glasses back on and rattled his papers. “I can’t talk to you when you get like this. I always rest on Saturday. You know that. That’s just how I am. Now if you don’t mind, I’ve got work to do.” Then he went back to his papers like everything was settled.

  I stood there for a minute watching him, feeling all dead inside. Steven was only forty-eight years old, but he was the oldest man I knew.

  When I got back to the kitchen, I thought, well, you just rest then, Steven. But just because you want to lie down and die doesn’t mean I have to lie down next to you.

  Then I picked up the phone.

  “Mary Price, do I have to wear a cowgirl suit Saturday night or can I dress like a normal person?”

  Chapter 12

  Steven wasn’t speaking to me. When he saw I was going to Palomino Joe’s with or without him, he said, “I don’t like the way you’re acting. I’ve let you keep your friends, but I won’t have you acting cheap.” Then he went into the den and slammed the door.

  After that he didn’t say a word either to me or the girls. He stomped around the house in a huff, slamming doors, glaring at everyone. On Friday I cooked from the menu and tried to pretend everything was fine. Steven sat through our meals with his face and heart like stone, and the girls’ eyes darted back and forth between us.

  Saturday morning he left the house early without a word to anyone about where he was going or when he’d be back.

  The silence shouldn’t have bothered me. I should have been an expert at Steven not speaking. But the tension in the house had my nerves torn to pieces.

  Saturday, I almost called Mary Price a dozen times to cancel.

  All morning, I brooded around the house. But that afternoon I went upstairs and Dippity-Do’d my hair straight up for courage. I was in the bathroom, staring into the mirror, when Amy strolled in. She didn’t seem to notice me. She picked up a hairbrush and started flipping the ends of her hair. Then all at once her eyes went wide.

  “For heaven’s sake, Mama! It’s bad enough to have a sister who thinks she’s Sacagawea. Now my own mother thinks she’s Tina Turner.”

  “Do you think this hairdo’s all right for Palomino Joe’s tonight?”

  She stared at me. “You, going to Palomino Joe’s? What for?”

  “To watch Mary Price and Hoyt perform.”

  “Honestly, Mother. Only rednecks and redneck wannabes go the Palomino.”

  “You sound like a big old snob when you talk like that, Amy.”

  She sniffed. “I can’t believe you talked Daddy into taking you.”

  “Daddy’s not going.”

  “You mean you’re going without him?”

  “Daddy doesn’t want to go. But Mary Price and Hoyt are the featured act. I think I should be there.”

  “I can’t believe it. I think it’s bizarre. Mrs. Bumbalough strutting around town in a cowgirl suit and now you. Why, it’s positively bizarre. Why can’t you be like other mothers? What if someone sees you?”

  “Everyone will see me! The whole town’s going, including mothers! Now watch how you talk to me. I’m still your mother.”

  “A mother who goes to bars. Dances with rednecks. I can’t believe you’d do anything that low.” She threw the hairbrush into the sink and ran out of the bathroom and down the stairs.

  I ran after her. I wanted to pinch her head off. “Amy, come back here! I’m not through with you!”

  She didn’t slow down, just looked over her shoulder and shouted, “I’m the one that’s through! I can’t stand it! The minute I graduate I’m moving in with Grandmother Presson.”

  After she left I went upstairs and threw myself on my bed. I’d been so excited about feeling alive again. But the minute I was singing around the house, looking forward to something, Steven stopped speaking to me and Amy started threatening to leave home.

  From the bed I could see my reflection in the dresser mirror. My hair was sticking straight up. A few minutes ago it’d given me courage. Now I felt like a fool. Maybe Steven and Amy were right. Maybe I was a silly middle-aged woman trying to look young. I frowned at my reflection, mashed my hair flat. Me, going to Palomino Joe’s, what for? Was it really to see the Bumbaloughs or just an excuse to see Jerry again? Maybe I was a thirty-eight-year-old woman looking for romance and excitement, when the time for romance and excitement was over.

  I went downstairs, picked up the phone and called Mary Price, but no one answered.

  Ten minutes later she knocked on the door.

  “I know I’m hours early, but I’m too wound up to wait. Can you do my hair now?”

  We went to the kitchen and I poured two cups of coffee. “I tried to call you. Would you…be mad…if I didn’t go tonight?”

  She just looked at me. “Well, Lord, Maggie. I can’t believe it! I thought you wanted to go. You’ve said so all week.”

  I had hurt her feelings, the last thing I’d wanted to do. “Mary Price, I’m sorry. I want to go. I do. It’s just…Steven’s in a snit, he hasn’t spoken to me in two days. Then this morning, Amy had a fit and ran out of the house.”

  “Is that all?” she said, lighting a Virginia Slim.

  “Isn’t that enough?”

  “So Steven’s mad. So what? Hoyt�
��s mad at me half the time and the sun still comes up in the morning. Besides, teenagers are supposed to pitch fits. That’s their job. ’Course I have to admit Amy’s extra good at her job. But you can’t let them get away with it.”

  “It’s just…I hate when people get mad at me.”

  “Lord, Maggie. You’ve spent your whole life letting everyone tell you what to do. No offense, honey, but you even let your daddy tell you how to live your life and the Lord and everyone else knows that Smilin’ Jack Sweet doesn’t have the sense God gave a goose.”

  Before I could defend Daddy she went on. “’Course you were only a child then, so I’ll make some allowances. But you’re grown now. Why, before I’d let my husband or child or anyone tell me what to do I’d dye my hair green and go braless to the Winn-Dixie. Just ask Hoyt Bumbalough if I wouldn’t. I mean, what’s Amy going to do about it? What’s Steven going to do? Hit you? Chain you up in the basement? Thousands of women go out without their husbands every night of the week.”

  “It’s not like that. Steven’s a good man. He’d never hit me. It’s just when he goes around not speaking, it makes me feel like pure crud.”

  She ground out her cigarette, then looked me in the eye. “If he’s such a good man he wouldn’t make you feel like crud over nothing. Just because he’s not a criminal doesn’t make him a good man.”

  “Well, for goodness sake, Mary Price,” I said, gasping. Her logic always surprised me, spun my head around. I’d always placed Steven above me. He was the grown-up, I was the child. He gave the orders; I obeyed. But Mary Price wasn’t the least impressed with Steven. She just saw him as another spoiled, bossy man. Why, if I’d said much more, she’d have met him at the door with a hickory switch.

  “There’s more to life than keeping your head down and cooking from the menu in hopes your husband’ll do you the honor of speaking to you. He’s just pouting like a spoiled child. He’s had his way so long he thinks it’s his due. But this is America, Maggie. Lincoln freed the slaves. Tell Steven the next time he’s at one of his historical meetings to look that up in his Emancipation Proclamation.”

  I laughed. Already I felt better. Then I thought about Jerry.

  “Mary Price, I’m so mixed up. I just…I’m scared to death to see Jerry again,” I said, avoiding her eyes.

  She hesitated. “I wondered about that. I saw the way you two looked at each other the other day.”

  “You saw it?”

  “Shoot! Even Hoyt saw it. And he doesn’t notice anything. After you all left, he said, ‘Mary Price, I’d die a happy man if you ever once looked at me like Maggie looked at Jerry. Why, she was lit up like Christmas.’”

  “Oh, Lord, I’m doomed. What am I gonna do?” I wailed.

  “You gotta do what you gotta do. But if it helps at all, Jerry won’t be there tonight. His house in Jacksonville sold and he had to make a last-minute trip down to Florida for the closing. Go tonight. Get your mind off your worries. But I’ll tell you what, if a man ever looked at me like Jerry Roberts looks at you, I’d go to hell and face the devil before I walked away from it.”

  We sat there awhile, not saying anything. Finally Mary Price sighed and said, “Now let’s do my hair, then we’ll figure out what you’re gonna wear to the opening.”

  After finishing her hair, we went upstairs and looked in my closet. She took one look and said, “Jumping Jesus, it looks like Minnie Pearl’s closet.”

  “Not everyone thinks cowgirl outfits are the height of fashion,” I said.

  “Sad but true,” she said, shaking her head. “Wear the jeans you wore to my house. They fit great. With boots and a scarf you’ll be fine.”

  “But I don’t have boots,” I said.

  “You’re kidding! What do you have?” she asked.

  “Kmart sneakers and my good beige pumps.”

  “Lordymercy, that’s pitiful. Try these,” she said, kicking off her own boots.

  Five minutes later I was dressed in jeans, a bright T, and Mary Price’s boots.

  Just then Jill, who’d come home while I was doing Mary Price’s hair, peeked in the door. “What are you all doing? I could hear you laughing all the way downstairs.”

  “I’m doing a makeover on your mama. She’s going to the Palomino tonight and she’s gotta look good.”

  “Mama! Going to the Palomino!”

  “If you’ve come to yell at me you’ll have to get in line,” I snapped.

  “Kick butt.”

  “What?”

  “Kick butt! I wondered when you’d get a bellyful of the dead-relatives routine.”

  Mary Price gave me her I-told-you-you-just-had-to-stand-up-to-them look.

  I wanted to say, Jill’s easy. But, you couldn’t convince Steven and Amy in a lifetime.

  Ten minutes later I’d painted up, redone my hair, and Jill had loaned me an Indian print vest and turquoise earrings.

  Mary Price dragged me to the mirror. “Lord, girl. I’ll have to say you clean up good. I think we’re ready for Palomino Joe’s. I just wonder if Palomino Joe’s is ready for us.”

  I smiled at my reflection. An hour earlier I’d felt lower than a well. Now I felt great. “Thanks,” I said, turning around to admire my new look. “But it should’ve been me helping you get ready for your big night.”

  “But I am ready, Maggie. I’ve been ready for years.”

  “And now I’m ready, too,” I said with feeling. “But I want you to promise me something. If you all see me wallowing in nerves and self-pity again, promise you’ll shoot me—put me out of my misery.”

  “You know I’d do anything for you, Maggie,” Mary Price said, grinning at me in the mirror.

  Chapter 13

  Palomino Joe’s is a big, square, windowless building filled with picnic-style tables, a bar at one end, a bandstand at the other, and a huge sawdust-covered dance floor in between.

  Saturday night two hundred people of every age, shape, and size (everyone but Jerry) crowded the floor while The Traveling Bumbaloughs sang the oldies, “You Picked A Fine Time To Leave Me, Lucille,” “Delta Dawn,” “Satin Sheets,” then the newer, “Modern Day Romance” and “She’s Single Again.” Toward the end of the first set, Mary Price winked right at me and sang “Walking After Midnight.”

  I have to admit, I shed a few tears. I had always known what singing meant to Mary Price. Now I was choked with pride. She strutted all over the stage while her voice filled the room, owned the room, and everyone in it.

  I couldn’t sit still. It was all I could do not to throw my head back and howl. I tapped my feet, drummed the tabletop, wanted to shout, “That’s my friend! That’s my best friend!,” like a Little League parent whose child just hit a home run.

  A whole new world was opening up to me. While I’d spent Saturday nights at committee meetings, or at home watching Steven rest, then having routine right-after-the-eleven-o’clock-news-sex, some of Poplar Grove’s finest were stomping it up at places like Palomino Joe’s.

  Geneva and Modine volunteered their husbands to dance with me, and I line-danced with everyone. But I was happy just sipping Pepsi, listening to the music and watching everyone.

  Around ten the Bumbaloughs took a break, and the pickup bands were thrilled for a chance to make music.

  Mary Price dragged me off to her dressing room to redo her hair. “Hot damn, Maggie! This is the night I was put on earth for.”

  “I never knew you were this good,” I said, hugging her.

  “I’ve never been this good. It’s like something’s come over me. Hurry with my hair. They’ve asked us to do another set and I don’t want them to see that the pickup bands are good, too.”

  When she went back to the bandstand, I looked at my watch. If I didn’t get home soon, Steven would never let me out of the house again. But suddenly the energy level in the room went into high gear. A spotlight hit Mary Price and everyone started to whistle and stomp. Even a tourist like me knew something special was happening.

  She took
center stage and shouted, “Are you all having a good time?”

  The crowd screamed, “Yes!”

  “Are you ready for a song about a low-down woman going low-down places?”

  They shouted back, “We’re ready!”

  “I can’t hear you!” she called.

  “We’re ready!”

  The music started, then built—Mary Price at the keyboard, Hoyt at the microphone. Whole tables of people circled the floor, grabbing the belt loops of the person in front of them while they sang-shouted, “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town,” to the rowdy Bumbalough beat.

  Modine and Ellis dragged me to the floor, and off we went, joining the line, dancing our feet off ’til we collapsed back at the table.

  As soon as I stopped panting, I picked up my purse and started to say my good-byes. That’s when he came up behind me.

  “Looks like I got here in the nick of time. How ’bout the last dance?”

  I knew who it was without looking. I stood, put my arms around him, and we moved to the dance floor. Mary Price was singing “You Were Always on My Mind.” We didn’t miss a beat.

  Nothing had changed in twenty years. He was still a mile taller. It still didn’t matter. I laid my head on his chest. Good Lord.

  “We haven’t had a chance to talk since I got back,” he said.

  “I know.”

  “Why didn’t we run off graduation day?”

  “I called you.”

  “When?”

  “Graduation day.”

  He stepped back, looked in my eyes. “You did? I forget. I was crazy back then. Crazy from wanting you.”

  “You weren’t home. I didn’t know what to do.”

  “God. All those years,” he said, pulling me close.

  “All those years…”

  “I didn’t know you still wanted…”

  “I know.”

  “Godamighty.”

  “Oh, Lord.”

  We went back to our table. Two hundred sets of eyes watched us. He didn’t say, I’ll call. I didn’t say, we shouldn’t. We just knew.