A Wedding Invitation

by Alice J. Wisler

  Dovie knows I’ll always make my way down South when she asks; her home is like a respite from a weary world.

  “I was the one who was listening to the radio station when Carson was announcing a song, remember that?” Beanie says. “He said it reminded him of his days in the Philippines at a refugee camp. I called him right then. I knew that Sam spent a year there.”

  “Same camp?” Pearl asks.

  “Same camp,” says Carson, his smile directed at me.

  “And was the song Madonna’s ‘Borderline’?” I say with a knowing grin, because it had to be either that or one of Michael Jackson’s.

  Carson laughs. “It sure was.”

  “Since you work at the station,” says Pearl, “could you have them play a song for us?”

  “A song? Now?”

  “I mean, this is quite a reunion we have here. You and Sam together again after all these years.” Beanie tosses me a sly smile that I try to ignore.

  “We do need a song sung,” my aunt chimes in.

  “Which one?” asks Carson as he sips his iced tea.

  Beanie thinks aloud. “Now, we want something peppy, and yet not too loud.”

  “How about an oldie?” Dovie’s eyes are bright. “I like lots of songs by Peter, Paul, and Mary.”

  “I like Frank Sinatra,” Pearl informs us. Her smile is generous, exposing her tiny teeth. I wonder how she chews food with the miniature enamels. “Or is he too old for this group?”

  “Everyone knows Sinatra,” says Carson, his words making Pearl beam.

  “I met him once.” Pearl looks like she’s trying to recall just where that meeting took place.

  “You were in Manhattan,” says Dovie.

  “Oh yes, I must have told you about it already.” She nods. “Yes, I was.”

  “Really?” Carson looks impressed.

  For the first time I’m relieved that Mom’s not here. She’d certainly jump into her old story of how her friend was once kissed by Elvis.

  “We need a song that commemorates us.” Dovie’s mind is searching, I can tell by the way her eyes are squinty. “We need it to have a line in there that describes how we’re feeling.”

  I can think of plenty of songs that deal with love that has gone sour, but I doubt anyone would understand why I feel a song like that would be appropriate right now.

  Pearl has been concentrating with closed eyes, and now as they spring open, she cries, “Celebrate.”

  Beanie claps her hands together. “Celebrate!” She laughs as the older woman smiles. “By Kool and The Gang!”

  “That’s perfect!” says Dovie.

  Beanie starts singing the chorus. “ ‘Celebrate, come on!’ ” Then she insists that we each have a wedge of chocolate cake and rhubarb pie.

  twenty

  After dessert, Dovie gets the phone from the kitchen and hands it to Carson. From memory, Carson punches in the numbers as we wait with broad smiles.

  Pearl whispers, “This is the first time I’ve ever requested a song on the radio.” Her excitement is like a little girl’s as she does something she has heard about but never had the opportunity or the nerve to try.

  “Hey.” Carson’s voice is warm when the station answers the phone. “It’s Carson. Hi, Jason.” We are quiet as Jason talks and then hear Carson say, “Happy Fourth to you, too. The group I’m with wants to request a song. ‘Celebration’ by Kool and The Gang.”

  Pearl nods as Beanie rubs her hands together in anticipation.

  “I don’t know,” Carson responds to whatever he’s been asked. He looks around at us. “I guess we’re Dovie’s dinner guests.”

  “Dovie’s exclusive dinner guests,” Beanie says with authority. To the rest of us, she adds, “I always wanted to be part of an exclusive party.”

  After Carson hangs up, we resume our conversation as the radio provides background noise.

  Dovie tells about a butterfly release she had a few weekends ago, where the butterflies refused to get out of the cage, even after she banged on the top a bit with her hand. She then explains how she plans to overnight some butterflies for a release in Florida.

  The song “Yesterday” by The Beatles comes on, its melancholy tune reminding me of so many yesterdays, of time slipping away. Then we hear Jason announce that the next song is dedicated to “Dovie’s exclusive dinner guests,” and we grow quiet with expectancy. As the music begins, we grin at one another. Beanie taps her foot against the porch floor. Pearl rises from her chair, her belly knocking a spoon onto the floor, and twists her arms a bit, resembling a Hawaiian dancer.

  Carson meets my smile and says, “Doesn’t this remind you of the Philippines?” And I agree that although it’s an older crowd tonight, the desire to sing and dance is just like during those camp days.

  Beanie turns up the volume and sings with the musicians, “ ‘Celebrate good times, come on!’ ” Then she pushes aside a few chairs and flexes her arms and shakes her thighs in an energetic move.

  Dovie stands, her tall apron-clad frame looking like a telephone pole next to Beanie’s short body. She wiggles her hips and snaps her fingers, not at all in sync with the music, but no one seems to mind. Pearl grabs her hand and the two shuffle about the room in between the furniture.

  I envision plates being hit by swinging limbs and torsos so, maneuvering around the dancers, stack up a few to carry into the kitchen. Carson grabs two and follows me.

  In the kitchen, beside the loud ticking clock, he says, “You know what?”

  “What?” I say as I begin loading the dirty dishes into the dishwasher.

  “Lien said you are the same, and you are.”

  I think that the years have made him mellow.

  “Well . . .” I suck in air. “It’s unbelievable that we are standing in the same space again.”

  He smiles, and I note that his light green shirt makes his eyes appear even greener. They are like emeralds almost, and I remember that when I used to look at them closely, I saw flecks of green, brown, and amber.

  Seeing that the group on the porch is still dancing, Carson and I sit at the table.

  “Is your family still in Raleigh?” I ask.

  “They are. My brother and his wife bought a house off of Glenwood. My sister just got married.”

  “We were so worried about her. And you.”

  Carson’s voice is soft. “Yeah. I’m glad she’s okay.”

  “What was her diagnosis?”

  “Breast cancer.”

  The words sting inside my heart. “My mom went through breast cancer.”

  Carson frowns. “How is she?”

  “She had a mastectomy. Now she’s fine. Well, you know, checkups every year where they run a bunch of tests.”

  “And you hold your breath and pray that the results are negative.”

  I nod and feel that bond between us fuse again, like all the years we’ve been apart never existed. “Exactly.”

  Laughter rushes from the porch into the kitchen. Beanie is still dancing. From the sound of scraping movements, she’s possibly moving chairs to make for more room.

  Carson’s smile captivates me, and although I try, I can’t look away. “Seems like they are having a good time,” he says.

  “Beanie with more talent than the other two.”

  “Your aunt is good for her. Good for all of us in Winston. Like our own Mother Teresa.”

  “Like you were in the camp.”

  “Me?”

  “You helped everyone. Everyone knew you and liked you.”

  “Except for Minh. Remember how he was angry with me for sticking up for Lien?”

  I’m about to ask how his relationship is now with the Vietnamese man when Carson reaches for my hand and runs his finger along my thumb. “Sam.” His voice is low.

  Warmth rises from my stomach and spreads over my limbs. Carson’s face is inches from mine.

  With feeling he says, “It’s so nice being with you again.”

  “Oh, I almost forgot!” I p
ull my arms away from the table.

  “What?”

  “I have to take photos of the butterflies for Mom.”

  His look holds disbelief. I know that look well. “Right now?”

  I don’t meet his eyes.

  “Sam?”

  “And I have to make a phone call. Will you excuse me?” Darting out of the kitchen, I climb the stairs to the second floor. Once upstairs, I wonder where to go.

  The bathroom is not in use. Inside, I lock the door. Leaning against the white door, I trace the wood with my fingers and feel my breath against my hand. I will not come out. I will not. Carson is not going to win me over.

  Ever.

  If that’s what he’s trying to do.

  And he’s not.

  Eventually, I find that I can open the bathroom door and return to the porch. I decide to avoid the kitchen in case Carson might still be seated at the table. When I hear his voice from the group outside, I let myself enter the kitchen. Grabbing a glass from the cupboard, I fill it with water from the faucet and take a long sip. The water soothes my throat.

  Just then I hear pounding on the back door. I open it to see four neighborhood kids standing there.

  “Daddy’s going to do fireworks,” the tallest boy announces. He looks like he could be seven or eight.

  “Where’s Miss Dovie?” asks a girl. She has no front teeth.

  “Out on the front porch,” I say.

  “Tell her to watch the fireworks.”

  The boys are in shorts, and the girls are wearing red, white, and blue sundresses.

  “Will you tell her?” The tallest is demanding.

  “I will.”

  “We’re doing them on the cuddle sack.”

  I note the dots of perspiration on his tiny nose. “The what?”

  “The road,” says the girl with bouncy blond hair. Pink bubblegum pops off her lips. She catches it in her hand, shoving it back into her mouth. She then slides her hand across her sundress a few times.

  “Cuddle sack is what you call the end of the road,” says the shorter boy, wisdom flowing from his young words.

  “Okay. I’ll let everyone know.”

  Neighbors arrive carrying lawn chairs. They set them on the edge of the road in front of Dovie’s porch. Dovie greets them all by name and asks if they would like either chocolate cake or rhubarb pie. Each one declines her offer but thanks her.

  The family with the fireworks has its clan seated on a large fluffy blanket on their lawn at the end of the road. The children shriek and clap, begging their daddy to start the show.

  Carson is near me. I have no idea where anyone else is; I just know that Carson is seated to my right, inches from my elbow. If I look down, I can see his left black Adidas with the milky white shoelaces.

  The first firecracker launches. As it crackles into the darkness, it exposes each face with light. The next one flares, sending rockets of color into the dark sky.

  The audience claps. The children cry for another.

  I get a glimpse of Carson’s face, that sturdy nose, that chin that juts out a little, and those eyes that squint when he’s puzzled. But when he catches my gaze, I turn and study the sky once more.

  One by one, the fireworks boom into the air. I’ve always been mesmerized by the beauty of these things. There is so much noise and color packed into one small container. I recall how Daddy would let me choose which cellophane pack to buy from the display at the grocery store. As a child I wanted the assortment that would bring the most sizzle. “Which package makes the best noises?” I recall asking my father. “That’s what I want!”

  Now I prefer the rockets that cause the air to tingle with romantic notions. I once told Natasha, “Fireworks are romantic.”

  She agreed and confessed, “I always pretend they scare me and then I have an excuse to grab the hand of the guy I’m with.”

  I feel Carson’s legs stretched out near mine, his broad hands within holding distance. But even as a boom of fire rapidly sails into the sky, I can’t reach for him. You did that once, remember?

  He leans in and whispers something about the fireworks. I can’t hear him over the chattering children and adults around us.

  When three rockets pop into the sky, the children squeal. White stars crackle in the air, each one louder than the previous one.

  “Daddy, make the next one hit the moon!” one boy shouts after the residue from the cardboard has subsided and the last hiss has left the sky.

  Carson turns to me, his arm brushing against mine.

  The urge to kiss him has never left me. As Beanie would say, it just got “pushed underneath all the living.”

  twenty-one

  November 1986

  Van came into my classroom with two other Vietnamese men the minute my afternoon students left. Standing beside my desk, they presented me with a bottle of Coke. I thanked them and asked how they were doing.

  The men—older men with solemn faces that I’d never seen before during my visits to the neighborhoods—formed questions, questions directed at me for Van to translate. Van stressed that I must be truthful. As Lien’s teacher, I needed to tell them what I thought of her. I agreed that I would be honest in my answers and so admitted that, yes, Lien came to class with items that did not belong to her. Yes, I thought she could steal. She had taken a pair of scissors from my desk drawer and had taken them home, secretly returning them a couple of days later; a fellow student had seen her slipping them into my drawer and shouted that Lien was a thief.

  After the questions stopped, the men nodded, thanked me, and left. The room suddenly felt eerie, making me wonder what had just taken place.

  Due to the questioning session, I missed the agency’s van that afternoon and had to slowly walk the half mile back to my dormitory. I had a Bible study to attend, which lasted a long time, making me not get to the mess hall for dinner until almost eight. I looked for Carson, but he must have already eaten or was with students. I couldn’t find him.

  The next afternoon I found Carson alone in his classroom. We had both missed the van back to the dorms.

  “Did they question you?” Carson’s tone was low. He shoved his lesson planner into a knapsack he often carried around camp.

  “Who?”

  “Van and the councilmen.”

  I thought of the two men who’d entered my classroom with Van yesterday. I’d had no idea they were councilmen. From the look on Carson’s face, he had some bad news to share. I hoped that Van hadn’t conveyed to him what I’d shared with the men. “They did. Did they question you, too?”

  His sigh lifted from his lungs and then he sat down. “The council members from Neighborhood Nine agreed to search the Hongs’ billet.”

  “And?”

  “They didn’t find any of the jewelry and the only money was in a tin can and it amounted to a measly thirty pesos. Lien didn’t steal anything. I don’t know why her reputation makes everyone certain she would steal.”

  “So, since they found nothing, this means she’s not guilty, then?”

  Carson shook his head. “They think she stashed it somewhere else.”

  Maybe if she held a better rapport among her people, I wanted to say, they wouldn’t be so quick to accuse her. But then I realized that the dust or dirt of the earth would never be thought of as innocent. Regardless of whether she had the behavior of an angel, she would always be looked down upon. Some things do not change, Samantha.

  Defeated, Carson laid his head against his folded arms on his desk.

  I wondered if he’d let me hold him. I placed a hand along his back. When he didn’t protest, I put both arms around him and laid my face on his shoulder.

  “Mr. Hong told Lien that she can’t come by this classroom to see me anymore. He’s not letting her go out freely. He’s keeping her on a tight rein.”

  “I’m sorry,” I breathed into his shoulder.

  A warm November wind pelted the tin roof, and the rats along the overhead beams grew quiet. I felt a
cramp in my leg but didn’t want to move away from Carson. I wondered if he cared more about the Hong family than anyone else in the camp. His capacity to wrap himself around the four of them was amazing to me. Sure, I felt a fondness for many of the refugees, but I knew my devotion could never match his. It set me in awe—and it frustrated me.

  Carson’s breath brushed against my encircled bare arms. I had this feeling that if he moved his lips, they would brush against my skin. I held my own breath, the longing growing with each moment.

  Suddenly, the door to his classroom opened and Brice walked in, a smirk on his face.

  Carson got up and stepped away from me, leaving me to catch myself from falling by grabbing the edge of his massive desk.

  Brice sauntered over to us. “Want to go get dinner? I’m starving.”

  “Sure,” said Carson.

  “Did you hear that Lien’s not allowed to come visit you anymore?” Brice shrugged. “Just as well. She’s a handful. Do you think she really stole all that stuff?”

  “Just a jade necklace and some bracelets,” I said.

  “That’s not what I heard. I was told that she took a few dozen pieces of jewelry from five billets in the Neighborhood Nine, and at least seven hundred pesos.”

  Carson looked pained.

  I wanted to tell him that it would be okay, that I was here, that I’d be glad to sit with him and just listen to the wind.

  He looked at me and said, “Let’s go eat.”

  My heart lurched.

  Slowly, I followed him and Brice out of the warm classroom, into the damp evening air. But my longing stayed, sticking onto my skin more tightly than Dovie’s butterfly cocoons wrapped on tree limbs.

  twenty-two

  Dovie, Beanie, and I clean up the kitchen, removing dishes from the dishwasher and placing them in the cupboards. Little calls from her daughter Liza’s in Florence, South Carolina, where she’s spending the holiday weekend. Dovie answers the phone and talks a bit and then repeats to us what Little just told her. “Says Liza wants to join the convent and become a nun.”