Outside Jerry put his arms around me. “God, I missed you.”
“It seemed like forever.”
“It was forever. Want me to follow you home?”
“I’ll follow you. I’ve got a lot of thinking to do.”
“I love you to pieces.”
“I think you hung the moon.”
Then we pulled out of Daddy’s driveway and headed for home. It was all over but the shouting.
Chapter 24
Over the next two weeks, I realized that I’d been a fool to think it was all over but the shouting. There hadn’t been any shouting, but it was still far from over.
I was in such high gear the afternoon I left Daddy’s that I drove directly to Mother and Mama Dean’s. But when I tried to talk to them, Mama Dean went to bed with a sick headache. Then Mother’s face seemed to crumble and she said, “I can’t talk about this now, Maggie,” and she rushed to her room. After two weeks they still wouldn’t talk about it. To tell you the truth, they were barely speaking to me at all.
I hadn’t talked to my girls yet either. I phoned and drove by the house dozens of times but no one was ever at home. Then I heard through Shirley who’d heard through Theo Bloodworth that Steven had picked them up at his mother’s and taken them to Myrtle Beach. This flew all over me. For years I’d begged him to take us to Myrtle Beach, but he just glared at me, wouldn’t even discuss it. It was bad enough I wasn’t able to see my girls, but worse that he had time (and the beach) to convince them he was Father of the Year and I was Mommy Dearest.
Just thinking about my family made my eyes well and my stomach clench.
As if I wasn’t already stressed out, the night came for the Poplar Grove class of 1965’s twentieth class reunion at the Moose Club.
So much had happened in just two weeks. I’d gone and left Steven and everyone knew it. I was working at the the Curl & Swirl and living in the apartment behind the shop. Jerry and I were together, just not officially together.
But everyone had to be thinking, Isn’t it odd that after all those years, Maggie left Steven the minute Jerry Roberts hit town?
If we went to the reunion everyone would be watching. One false move and our secret would be out and they’d all think we were heathens.
On the other hand, it would look even more suspicious if we both canceled. Besides, we’d have to show our faces in public sooner or later.
At the farmhouse, the night before the reunion, it all seemed so complicated, I broke down and cried. Jerry held me in his arms and said, “It’s all right, Maggie. It’s going to be all right. We just have to take it one day at a time.”
So we did decide to go the reunion. We’d just go separately, blend in with the crowd, then sit at the same table. You know, sort of let us sneak up gradually, a little at a time, until folks accepted us as a couple.
I only hoped I could pull it off.
As I drove to the Moose Club, I told myself over and over again, “Take a deep breath. Don’t panic. You can do this if you don’t panic.”
I’d just parked my car when I saw Mary Price and Hoyt’s Silverado circling the parking lot. Mary Price waved and got out of the truck and while Hoyt drove off to find an empty spot, she walked me inside.
She waited with me in the lobby until I was pretty sure I could walk and breathe at the same time. Then she took my arm and said, “I promise you, Maggie, you really will live right through this.”
The next thing I knew we were sitting at a long table with our old high school crowd: Modine and Ellis, Geneva and Knoxie, Toy and Bobby. Hoyt had met Jerry in the parking lot. Since they were the last to arrive, the only seats left were at the opposite end of the table.
Everyone’s eyes darted from Jerry to me, from me to Jerry as they tried to make small talk. The men talked about the gas mileage of pickups versus minivans. The women talked about their children, their new reunion outfits, and the people at the other tables. Now and then there’d be a long awkward pause and everyone rushed in to fill the silence with comments about the weather or to mention, once again, that the hall was decorated in red and gray crepe paper streamers, Poplar Grove’s school colors.
I tried to act normal but my face felt hot and stiff.
When the DJ started playing golden oldies,” Let’s Twist Again, Like We Did Last Summer,” “Love, Love Me, Do,” “Wake Up, Little Suzie,” “Bad, Bad, Leroy Brown,” everyone relaxed. Soon we were singing along with the music and laughing about the things we got up to in high school.
Now and then Jerry’s blue eyes met mine across the crowded table and I’d think, he fits in. It’s as if he never left.
I danced with Ellis, then Knoxie and Bobby, while Jerry danced with their wives. Then everyone crowded the floor for the “Hokey Pokey” and the “Bunny Hop.”
After we ate (we had barbecued ribs and chicken and twice-baked potatoes, catered by Millie’s Percolator Grill), the DJ played “In the Still of the Night.” I was dancing with Hoyt when he came up behind me.
“Hey, old buddy, mind if I cut in?”
Hoyt made a deep courtly bow, and all at once I was in Jerry’s arms.
I laid my head on his chest, then jerked away. “Oh, Lord, I forgot.”
“I know.” He stepped back, looked into my eyes. “But we’ve danced with everyone else. If we don’t dance together, it’ll look like we’re avoiding each other. Now smile and say, ‘sha doop, sha doop, de doop.’”
“Why?”
“Because it’s the only line I know. Because you’re in my arms and I don’t want to forget we’re in public.”
I smiled. “Sha doop, sha doop, de doop. I wish we were at the farmhouse.”
“We will be and soon.”
“You think so?”
“I know so.”
Toy and Bobby Overcash danced past us, then Modine and Ellis. Jerry smiled. “Sha doop, de doop.” For a moment they just stared at us, then Bobby smiled and Ellis nodded.
“You think they know?’”
“Probably.”
“Oh, Lord.”
“They’re our friends, Maggie. We go back a long way.”
I stared out into the crowd. We did go back a long way. Hoyt and Mary Price, Modine and Elllis, Bobby and Toy. Everyone in this room, really. We’d been children together, grown up together. We’d been in and out of each other’s houses, knew each other’s parents, grandparents, and children. Memories washed over me, memories of grade school and ceiling fans, playing tag and Red Rover at recess. Then high school and Dixie Burger, Tangee and dating. I remembered cookouts and christenings; the months we stuck close to Doris when Knoxie was missing in Vietnam; the time we carried cash and casseroles when it looked like Modine and Ellis would lose their farm. We’d celebrated and cried together and even when we didn’t agree we’d been there for each other.
But before I could tell Jerry what I was thinking, the music changed from “In the Still of the Night” to “Goodnight, Ladies.”
Everyone moved to the floor for the last dance. A few minutes later we returned to our tables to pick up purses and sweaters and souvenir matches.
It wasn’t until we were all standing in the parking lot saying our good-byes that it hit me—the reunion was over and I had lived right through it.
Later, as I followed Jerry back to the farmhouse, I thought about what lay ahead. Steven’s anger. Explaining us to the girls. The year-long wait for a divorce to become final in North Carolina. I thought about Mother and Mama Dean. The two I dreaded facing the most. It would probably take a lifetme to make it up to them.
Up ahead Jerry motioned toward a detour sign. For the next two or three miles, the road was so rutted and filled with potholes, I wondered if my old car would make it.
Then suddenly the road smoothed out and we passed the Dingler farmhouse, the stand of loblolly pines, then Belews Pond. That’s when I remembered what Daddy said on the phone that night, two weeks ago.
When it came to to talking to Mother and Mama Dean, I’d hav
e to remind them it’s in the blood—that leaving a husband seems to run in the family.
So I tucked my car in behind Jerry’s pickup. Maggie and Jerry, together 4-ever, right here in Poplar Grove and real life.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the following, whose encouragement has been invaluable to me. My father, Robert Minthorn, the first to suggest I try writing and one of the few who still calls me “kid,” and my stepmother, Mary.
I thank my sisters, Joanne Clark, Margaret Yu, Nancy Toler, and Susan Gornichec, for their unfailing support and forever friendship.
My late grandmother, Alma Ellen MacDonald, whose endurance and humor have always delighted and inspired me.
In ways I don’t understand, this story is connected to the memory of my mother, Ethel Minthorn; my sister, Linda Minthorn Kehl; my son, Mark Stacy; my grandson, Scott Miller; and my mother-in-law, Georgia B. Stacy.
I am indebted to my teachers, Lila McGinness and the late Virginia Christenbury, who inspired me to keep writing.
I would like to thank my writer’s group, Thursday’s Child, who helped me find, tell, and publish this story. Special thanks to Phyllis Supnick, Glenys Bailey, Peggy Patterson, and Gypsy Travis, for their faithful and longstanding friendship.
Finally, I am deeply grateful to Ellyn Bache, whose patient editing and enthusiastic response to my work made publishing this book a reality.
About the Author
JUDITH MINTHORN STACY, a native of Michigan, married a Southerner right out of high school, had four children, and at various times worked as a salesclerk, waitress, and respiratory therapist. She does not style hair. A humor columnist for several newspapers, she has published articles in national women’s magazines and regional anthologies. She and her husband live in Mooresville, North Carolina.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
Praise for Maggie Sweet
Winner of the Carolina Novel Award
“This sweet-spirited book offers a folksy, humorous depiction of growth and awakening in a Southern setting.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Maggie Sweet is a strong Southern woman with the spit and wit to carve out her own style. Her story is both funny and tender.”
—Jill McCorkle, author of Carolina Moon
“A delight…. Readers will chuckle as they turn the pages.”
—Daily Times (Wilson, NC)
“The kind of novel that feels as comfortable as going home.”
—Raleigh News & Observer
“With its Southern and small-town dialogue, Maggie Sweet is a sure winner for female readers.”
—Dallas Morning News
“Maggie Sweet is exactly what you think it might be—and yet is nothing like you expect. Once it fixes its mascaraed gaze upon you, once the Jell-O salad does its green magic, once you hear in your head one more ‘Wake Up Little Suzie’ you are in its power till the end. At least I was and I’m no pushover. Judith Minthorn Stacy, you stole my heart away.”
—Fred Chappell
“A charming story about a Southern housewife who decides to follow her bliss.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“You’ll like Maggie Sweet. And you’ll laugh at least once on every page. Don’t miss it.”
—Greensboro News & Record
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author&rsquos imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
MAGGIE SWEET. Copyright © 2001 by Judith Minthorn Stacy. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
ePub edition May 2007 ISBN 9780061747199
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Maggie Sweet Page 17