Cheap Diamonds

by Norris Church Mailer

  I took a breath and started down the other side, my legs shaky from practically standing on the clutch and the brake, when the car fishtailed and the right tire went off the road. I spun my wheels and desperately tried to remember any National Geographic articles that told you how to survive in the cold woods without freezing to death if you only had a nail file and two Snickers bars in your purse. I made a mental note to read the articles in the future instead of just flipping through and looking at the pictures.

  After a hairy slide, miraculously the car bumped back up on the pavement, and soon, thank you, Jesus, I saw a sign that pointed toward Buchanan.

  As I got to the edge of town, I passed a neat little café painted cheery robin’s-egg blue snugged up next to Flyin’ Jack’s Truck Stop and realized I was starving. I was so grateful to be back near people that I decided to turn around and have a little bite to fortify myself. Lunch would have been long gone at St. Juniper’s.

  Christmas bells still hanging over the door jangled when I came in, and the smell of good food hit me in the face and made my eyes water. It was a small place—just three red Naugahyde booths and five chrome stools lining the counter. Perched on one of them was a woman in tight blue jeans and a T-shirt with the sleeves rolled up over a tattoo that said CHARLIE on her not-insignificant bicep. She was leaned back with her elbows on the counter, smoking and talking to a man hunkered over a coffee cup who was wearing a plaid shirt and an oil-stained green billed cap that said L&B TRUCKING. She waved her cigarette at me. Her hands were big and square, like a man’s, the nails neatly clipped.

  “Come on in, darlin’—take a load off. Sit down anywhere you want to. We got room for everybody today.” Her voice was rough, like it had been left out in the rain and rusted.

  “Thanks. It’s good and warm in here.” I smiled at her and slid into the booth farthest from the door.

  “Cassie, darlin’, get off the can! You got a customer!” she yelled, then turned to me. “She’ll be right out. I’m Bernadette, the chef and proprietor of the joint, so when you figure out what you want, I’ll go back and cook it for you.”

  “I’d take the burger, if I was you,” the man said, flicking another ash onto a mound of butts in a big ashtray. “That’s edible. Either that or the beans and corn bread. Bernadette’s a fairly decent corn bread maker. Little on the heavy side, but good and solid, and it sticks to your ribs.”

  “I’ll heavy side you, Snuffy Simmons!” she said, poking him in the ribs. “You would’ve done been dead if it wasn’t for my grub, so I don’t want to hear any complaints out of you.”

  A waitress probably not long out of high school came out from the back room. She was heavyset and big-busted, with silky fine honey-brown hair, long and parted in the middle, cornflower-blue eyes, and white, even teeth set across a wide smile. Her nose was a little on the large side with a bump in the middle, but it didn’t really matter. She was the friendliest face I had seen since I left Sweet Valley.

  “How’re you doing this lovely day?” She put a glass of water and a menu down in front of me.

  “Not too bad now. It’s been a rough one, though, and I’m hungry. What’s good?”

  “Everything’s good. Depends on what you feel like. Burgers. Fries we make ourselves—real potatoes. Chili’s good and spicy. Beans and corn bread, ham hock cooked in the beans. Fried catfish. Sandwiches. You name it.”

  “I’ll try a bowl of beans and corn bread, since it comes so highly recommended. Side order of slaw.” What did it matter if I ate beans? I was going to be sleeping alone, anyhow.

  Cassie picked up the menu and went back to the kitchen. The man in the trucker hat, Snuffy, I guess his name was, nodded his approval, stood up, stretched, and rolled a toothpick out of a holder on the counter.

  “Well, I ain’t getting any younger, so I might as well get going. I got some doing around to do before I take off tonight. You take care, Bernadette, and try not to poison nobody while I’m gone to the big bad city.”

  “You take care yourself—and try not to starve up there. You won’t get good cooking like mine up in Yankee land.”

  “You got that right.” He turned to me. “In New York, they don’t even know what chicken-fried steak is, nor red-eye gravy, neither. I stay just as long as it takes to unload my truck, and then I hightail it back here to civilization.”

  “You’re going all the way to New York City?”

  Outside of my one meeting with Suzan Hartman at the fair, I’d never met anyone who had actually been to New York City.

  “You wouldn’t like it,” he said, picking a piece of meat out of his teeth and spitting it onto the floor. “Lot of big tall buildings, so many people crowded together you have to stand in line just to walk down the sidewalk. You have to look straight up to even see any blue sky. Too much garbage. Too much traffic. Too much noise. Too much everything. The side streets are one-way and narrow, and it takes a genius of a driver to maneuver an eighteen-wheeler down them, which fortunately, I am.”

  “There’s no conceit in his family—he got it all,” Bernadette put in.

  “New York cabdrivers are all nuts, too. You gotta look out for them. It’s a miracle more people don’t get run over, as crazy as they drive. I wouldn’t get in one of those ol’ yellow things if my life depended on it. In fact, all New Yorkers are crazy. You need to carry a gun just to protect yourself from getting mugged.”

  Snuffy laid some money on the counter, picked his jacket off the coat tree.

  “Y’all take it easy. I’ll see you when I do.” He swatted Bernadette on her tight rear end and winked at me.

  “That old Snuffy sure is a card,” Bernadette said as the bells jangled and Snuffy slipped on his jacket as he walked toward his pickup. “Best durn truck driver L and B has, though, and not too bad at everything else, if you know what I mean.” She stubbed out her cigarette. “I’ll get you your dinner,” she said as she went back to the kitchen. “Just kick back and relax.”

  It was so warm and comfy in the restaurant that I did finally begin to relax. My feet were half frozen since I hadn’t had the sense to wear thick socks, so I took off the rubber boots I was wearing and rubbed my toes through my silky tights, which is kind of gross, but there wasn’t anybody else in there to see me. I had just put the boots back on when Cassie came back with a big bowl of steaming brown pinto beans, rich with pieces of ham, pink and juicy, and a basket of hot corn muffins.

  “Here you go, darlin’. Perfect meal for a day like this. Where’d you come in from?”

  “Sweet Valley. Know where that is?”

  “I think so. Down southwest from here in the River Valley?” I nodded. “That’s a pretty far drive, especially in this weather. You must be worn out. If you don’t mind me asking, what made you go through a snowstorm to get here?”

  “I’m going up to St. Juniper’s to practice teach. Classes start tomorrow.”

  “No kidding. My mother is the head housekeeper up there. She runs the place, if you want to know the truth. Her name is Annie Culver. We go to mass up at the abbey, too. My name is Cassie Culver, by the way.” She stuck out her hand, and I shook it.

  “Cherry Marshall. Good to meet you.”

  I dug into the beans, but Cassie obviously didn’t have a whole lot to do. She sat on the stool and leaned back for a chat.

  “So what teacher will you be working with?”

  “Father Leo. The art teacher.”

  “Oh, you’ll love him! He’s the best teacher they have. He lets me come up and use the wheel and the kiln sometimes on the weekends. Art was the only thing I was good at in school. I graduated from Buchanan last year, but we live not far from St. Juniper’s. Our family grows grapes for Freyaldenheimer’s winery.”

  “That’s great. I heard they made wine up here. Are you going to college?”

  “No way. I’ve had enough of school. I’m going to get married.” She held out her left hand to show me her ring. I squinted and just about picked out the glint of a tiny diam
ond in the middle of a fancy gold setting.

  “That’s really beautiful. Lot of fire in that diamond. Who’s the lucky guy?”

  “Lale Hardcastle. We been going together since tenth grade.”

  “That’s a good long time. What’s he like?”

  “Good-looking. He was voted Most Handsome every year of high school. It’ll be one wedding where the groom is prettier than the bride.”

  “I don’t believe that for a minute.”

  “You’ve seen me, but you haven’t seen him.”

  “Well, maybe I’ll get a chance to. I’ll be here for the rest of the semester.”

  “You have a boyfriend?”

  “Not at the moment. I just broke up with somebody, right before Thanksgiving. Or he broke up with me. He was a good-looking guy, too, and I hate to tell you, but most of the time, those are trouble.”

  “Yeah, I hear you, but Lale’s not like that. Maybe you’ll get back together.”

  “Afraid not. He’s married to somebody else.”

  “Oh. That’s awful. Well, you’ll find somebody better. You’re too beautiful not to have a boyfriend for long.”

  She seemed a little embarrassed. I shouldn’t have blurted it out about Tripp like that, but it was the truth, so why hide it? And frankly, I’m not sure Tripp and I would have been together anyhow. I thought I loved him, enough that he was the first guy I ever slept with, but a lot had happened since I met him last summer, and although it was a big shock at the time when I found out about Faye, his Vietnamese wife, it wasn’t like I was all that devastated. If I’m honest, part of me felt relief that I didn’t have to make a decision about marrying him myself, because I was in no way ready to tie myself down like that. One thing about Tripp, though—he always made me feel beautiful. Most of the time I felt like a tall, gawky freak who could never find a place to put my legs and arms, but Mama drilled into me that when somebody gives you a compliment, you don’t need to spend a lot of time denying it and shuffling your feet. All you have to say is “Thank you.” Otherwise, you insult their taste.

  “Thank you.”

  “You look like you could be a model, tall like you are and all. Did you ever do any modeling?”

  “I posed in a swimsuit for figure-drawing class at DuVall, but not really.”

  “You’re prettier than most of the ones in the magazines. I used to work at the drugstore so I got to read them all when they came in. You ought to get Father Leo to take some pictures of you. He’s a great photographer. He’s had shows of his stuff down at the bank, and at the abbey, and even at the Art Center in Little Rock.”

  “Does he photograph women? I mean, that’s kind of weird, a priest and all.”

  “Well, he mostly does landscapes and stuff, but he does women, yeah. You better realize that priests are men, Cherry, in spite of those collars. But Father Leo’s okay. He’s my buddy.”

  “Cassie!” Bernadette called out from the kitchen.

  “Be right there!” She stood up and stretched. She had on a loose top, and I wondered if she was a little bit pregnant. Oh, well. So what? Same song, second verse. A lot of marriages started out that way. My own dear cousin Lucille was nearly three months gone when she and her husband, Jim Floyd Hawkins, got married, and they had a great baby named Tiffany LaDawn and were really happy. If Cassie was pregnant, it was no big deal, and maybe she wasn’t. It was hard to tell, since she was a big hefty girl, almost as tall as me.

  “Anyhow, don’t worry about finding a boyfriend. I know a few guys up here,” she said. “I’ll work on it.”

  People in love are just obsessed with trying to spread the happiness around and fix up anybody who is single.

  “Cassandra Marie Culver! These dishes ain’t going to wash themselves!”

  “I’m coming!” She made a face and stuck out her tongue in the direction of the kitchen. “I better get back and help Bernadette, the old slave driver. Holler if you need anything. You might try that pepper sauce on the beans. It’s real good.”

  She shined her ring on her shirt and looked at it in the light. “It does have a little fire in it, doesn’t it?” Then she sauntered on into the kitchen.

  5

  * * *

  MOST HANDSOME

  It was dim in the barn, in spite of the coal-oil lantern that warmed a pocket of the dark, and when George Hardcastle pulled open the big wooden door, a swirl of white snow came in with him and made Lale squint until the door closed and shut out the light again.

  “Son, what are you doing out here in the barn? Your mama’s got supper about ready. You better get on in the house and get cleaned up.”

  Lale lay stretched out on a pile of hay with his hands behind his head. The noise of the cows chewing their cud blended with the whine of the wind, making a strange kind of music.

  “I’m not real hungry, Daddy. Y’all go on and eat. I’ll get something later over at the café. Cassie’s girlfriends are giving her a shower tonight, and after it’s over I got to go by and pick her and the presents up and take them to her house.”

  “You’re taking your life in your hands, boy, going to a hen party. Those girls will peck you to death!” George laughed, but Lale didn’t join him.

  “I feel like I’ve already been pecked to death.” His voice was gloomy in the dark. “All Cassie talks about is curtains and mixers and which dishes and glasses to pick out. I couldn’t care less what kind of plates we eat off of, or if we sleep on flowered sheets or plain.”

  “Well, son, you didn’t have to get married. Y’all could have waited awhile.”

  There was silence. In the dim light, George could see Lale struggling with what he had to say. George was patient. He already knew what was coming.

  “Couldn’t you?”

  “Oh, Daddy.” The words came out like a sigh, ragged and broken. “I need to tell you something, but it’s so hard.”

  “Try me. I might be more understanding than you think I will.”

  “I hate like everything to do this to you and Mama, and I know it’s all my fault, but we got to get married. Cassie’s going to have a baby.”

  “I done figured that one out, Lale.”

  “Does Mama know?”

  “I think she figured, too, but she likes Cassie. How far gone is she?”

  “Two months, I guess, more or less. We’ll have all the hoo-rah of the wedding, and won’t even get settled in until it will be more showers with baby stuff. It’s just all happening too fast. The truth is, I don’t even want to get married, much less be a daddy. In fact, I was thinking about breaking it off with Cassie when she dropped this load on me about the baby. I just don’t know what to do, Daddy. It’s eating me up. My insides feel dead. It seems like my life is already over before it even starts. I don’t know if I can go through with it.”

  George sat down on the bale of hay next to Lale, put his hand on his son’s ankle. The gentleness of the touch almost made Lale cry.

  “You may not believe it right now, son, but you can. I know you can. Let me tell you something, Lale, that I never was going to tell you, and you don’t have to let your mother know I did. The same thing happened to your mother and me. I was a year younger than you when we got married, and maybe I felt like you do. I wanted to go to the university and play ball, wanted to see what redheaded women were like—any other woman, for that matter. Your mother was the only one I’d ever been with, then or now. I had it in my mind to study to be a doctor or a lawyer or even a businessman—anything besides hardscrabble farming like my daddy. But even though I was only eighteen, I was acting like a man, and I had a man’s responsibilities. If you play, you got to pay. Still and all, don’t get me wrong. Not for one minute did I ever regret marrying your mother and having you and your sister, and you’ll feel the same way once you hold that baby in your arms. Cassie’s a good, solid girl. Things will change once the wedding’s over, and you’ll get used to married life. It won’t be so bad. You’re just scared right now, and I don’t blame you.”


  “You mean you didn’t ever wonder what it would have been like if you’d gone to the university and played ball? You never looked at a bus and wondered what it would be like to just get on it and ride to the end of the road and see what was there?”

  “It don’t matter whether I ever wondered or not. I had a responsibility to you and your mother, and you have a responsibility to Cassie and that baby. You forget about the end of the road, son. Right here’s the end of the road.” George patted his leg, two short pats, as if he was dismissing him, then got up and opened the barn door. “Don’t be sulking out here with the cows,” he said lightly. “It’ll sour their milk.”

  Lale tried to smile. “You go on in. I’ll be there directly.” As the barn door closed, the smile crumpled. He might have been acting like a man, but the boy he felt inside sobbed big greasy tears.

  Unlike his father, Lale had already had other women besides Cassie. Quite a few others, including a friend of his mother’s who had been his first, when he was fourteen. Sandra was a divorced blonde who had been a cheerleader with his mother, Janet, in high school. She dropped by for a visit one afternoon when Janet was out shopping with Lale’s little sister, Brenda. He couldn’t really say how it happened, but before she was there fifteen minutes they were up in his room with all their clothes off. He doubted many boys his age had an initiation like that one, and as much as he wanted to, he didn’t dare tell his friends about it. She was the mother of one of them. They still saw each other once in a while, if the truth were told. Amazing what you could get away with if you just kept your mouth shut.

  Cassie was different from most of the ones he went out with, though. She was a good Catholic girl and they had gone together over two years before he finally wore her down and she let him go all the way. It was a late-summer night, and surprisingly the aurora borealis lit up the sky. That was something rare that you almost never saw this far south. He told her it was a sign from God that it would be all right, but by that time she didn’t really need much selling. Part of the problem of being a good Catholic girl, however, was that she wouldn’t hear of him using a rubber, and he now saw what a fool he had been to keep on with her under those circumstances. She tried to use the rhythm method, but got pregnant after only a few months.