Bittersweet Creek

by Sally Kilpatrick

  So many things I wanted to say to him, but my mouth was dry. I went for a beer instead.

  “Aw, now he’s mad at me,” Ben said before he took a long pull from his bottle. “You just don’t know who you are if you’re not mad about something.”

  At the moment I knew who I was mad at. “Keep it up.”

  “There you are daring me,” he said, his voice now soft instead of taunting. That meant he was really mad. He put his bottle down even though it was over half full. “I hope I see you on Friday night.”

  Then he walked out on me, too.

  Since my beer didn’t taste right all of a sudden, I went across the yard to check on Mama. At first I didn’t see her, but she had to be in the living room since the TV was on. I did a double take at the shriveled woman in the monster recliner. I’d always thought getting rid of Curtis might bring her out of her shell. Instead, she seemed content to get his recliner out of the deal.

  I sat in her seat, a stiff flowery chair across from the recliner. If I was expecting her to say she was happy to see me, I was apparently going to be waiting a long time. “What’s going on with the will, Mama?”

  She kept looking at the TV while she spoke. She had it on I Love Lucy reruns and Lucy and Ethel were gobbling up chocolates from an assembly line. “Seems your father left us both out in the cold.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  She took a deep, ragged breath. “Because you’re not his son.”

  “What?”

  Her bleary eyes met mine. “You’re my child, but you’re not a McElroy. Not really.”

  “But Mamaw—”

  “Your mamaw never knew, but your father found out when you were five.”

  When I was five? And I remembered my kindergarten teacher was the first person I told about Curtis. I’d always thought she was the first adult I’d trusted enough, but what if there’d never been anything to tell before then?

  “Lester Ledbetter is your real father.”

  My father was a gossipy chain-smoker with aspirations of goat farming? “My father is Goat Cheese?”

  My mind zeroed in on the last thing Curtis McElroy said to me: Finally like a McElroy.

  Now I knew what he meant.

  From the moment he found out his wife had hoodwinked him, he’d started his training. He’d treated me like those pit bulls, doing his damnedest to make me mean.

  To make me a McElroy.

  But why? If Curtis wasn’t my real father then why in the blue hell had she married him?

  “How?”

  She shrugged. “Lester and I only went out that one time. By the time I figured out what had happened, he was practically engaged to Adelaide. So I walked up to the first man I saw and really poured on the charm.”

  My stomach churned. “And Curtis McElroy was the first man you saw?”

  She smiled, and I saw a ghost of the pretty woman she had been before cigarettes and Curtis had each taken their toll. “Pregnant women who walk into bars soon find beggars can’t be choosers—especially back then. Besides, your father could be quite charming when he wanted to be.”

  But not my father. “And when he started to beat you? You couldn’t leave him then? Or at least send me to . . . Mr. Ledbetter?”

  “But that was part of our deal, Julian.”

  “What deal? What are you talking about?”

  “When Curtis found out that you weren’t his, I begged him not to turn us out. I didn’t have anywhere to go. I’d never even graduated from high school. Both of my parents were already dead. He beat the shit out of me. Then he told me I could stay as long as I didn’t tell anyone.”

  “That’s not a deal.” I thought I was going to throw up.

  “No, the deal was that he could hit me, but he could never do more than spank you. And only if you needed it.”

  My mind ran through all of my whippings. Up until my senior year, they had all been whippings. Even then he’d started with his belt....

  “But, Mama, why didn’t you leave?”

  She shrugged, but she could still only manage the movement on one side. “I tried once when you told your teacher. I thought maybe the good Lord had given me an opportunity to get out.”

  I swallowed hard. That was the worst beating Curtis ever gave her.

  She looked over at the wall. “It didn’t work out that way. And your father—Curtis—came back with apologies and flowers and chocolates. At the same time he reminded me I had no place to go and no job to support you. He said—”

  Her voice broke, so I gave her a minute to move on.

  “He said he would fight for you if I left him. He said no court would believe you weren’t his. That scared me most of all, so I stayed.”

  She took in a shaking breath. “I almost shot him the other day.”

  I thought back to how I’d looked at the gun, how I probably would’ve picked it up and shot the bastard if I hadn’t been carrying Romy. “Yeah. Me, too.”

  One thing kept bugging me. “Why’d you go out there, Mama?”

  “Because you told me I didn’t deserve it no matter what. I had been telling myself all these years that you hated me. I realized you didn’t, but if something happened to her then you would.”

  I crossed the room and crouched down beside her recliner. Now I could hear the laugh track from I Love Lucy, a laugh track for the world’s least funny conversation. I laid a hand on Mama’s good arm. “Mama, I could never hate you.”

  She leaned over and kissed my forehead. “You could, but you don’t. And I’m grateful for that.”

  Romy

  Red dress? Check.

  Fully stocked and awesomely decorated Fountain? Check.

  Errant husband? Time would tell.

  Genie and I stood on the threshold of The Fountain, dressed in our best and ready to start welcoming our classmates. By all rights, I should’ve been nervous, but I wasn’t. I wanted Julian to show up, but I meant what I’d said. I couldn’t fight him anymore. He would have to make the next move, and it would need to be the last one.

  One thing I knew for sure: I wasn’t moving back to Nashville. I belonged here in Ellery. No matter what happened with Julian, I wasn’t going to let fear or guilt keep me from the farm where I’d grown up. I was actually excited at the prospect of teaching in the schools I’d once attended. Maybe I could inspire another little farm girl to go to Vanderbilt. Maybe she’d go be a lawyer.

  “How do I look?” Genie had spent an inordinate amount of time primping. Between that and her hand wringing, I was beginning to wonder if there was trouble in paradise. Surely not.

  “You look fantastic. That purple really suits you.”

  She grinned. “And you look like the Fourth of July with that red dress, blue cast, and white bandage.”

  “I wanted to be festive,” I said with a shrug. “That and the red dress was the only one I could get on with the cast.”

  At that point, people started arriving, so we split up and acted as hostesses, directing people to the bar, the photographer, or the space Bill had cleared for a dance floor. I felt only a little twinge of jealousy when Ben arrived. He took a step back at the sight of Genie, then made her twirl for him before he drew her close for a kiss.

  They headed for the dance floor, and I sneaked a peek at my phone. Julian had three hours left to show up. I took a ragged breath and forced a smile on my face before journeying into the crowd.

  Julian

  After spending most of the day cutting hay and getting Little Ann settled in on the back porch, I showered and sat in my favorite chair with a glass of water. I’d told myself I wasn’t looking at the clock, but I’d sneaked a glance that told me it was two hours after the reunion started.

  I flipped through the TV channels aimlessly. Reality shows. Spanish game show. Rose not scooting over to make room for Jack on the raft. The weather.

  Once I’d studied the weather report enough to know I’d cut my hay too soon, I started flipping again, but I felt restless. A rerun of
Seinfeld. The Cardinals game. The end of When Harry Met Sally.

  Billy Crystal started running, and I put my water down on the end table. I was standing in front of the kitchen counter where my truck keys were before I knew what was happening. Mamaw’s orange blossom ring sat beyond the keys, and I put that in my pocket, too.

  Get out there and make it happen, man.

  There’s nothing standing in the way of us being together but you.

  Out the door I went, not even bothering to turn off the TV. I slid into the truck and started backing down the driveway. I made it a few miles down the road when all the lights on the dash flashed and went black. The truck died. I managed to pull over to the side as it rolled, but I’d already seen the problem as the mileage flashed on the dashboard and then went out: seventy-four thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine miles.

  The alternator. I’d never hear the end of that—assuming I got there in time for Romy to ever speak to me again.

  I dug out my cell to call her. No bars in the dip where the truck had given out, and it would be dead by the time I got bars. I could expect to hear about that, too.

  Dammit.

  No taxi cabs in the country, so there was nothing left to do but start running.

  Romy

  My nerves had begun to fray in spite of my earlier resolve. We’d announced all of the awards, and Genie had been forced to give the one for Couple Married Longest to Lacey Bolton and her husband because I didn’t have a husband there. It was beginning to look like I wouldn’t be having a husband for much longer.

  I’d mourned the possibility, then tried to hide from it. Now, the thought of losing Julian caused a bone-deep sadness, but I could still muster a smile. I would move on, if I had to; I, like the Gloria Gaynor song playing, would survive. I danced. I had a beer. I told myself not to stare when Genie and Ben shared a slow dance.

  I checked my phone.

  Thirty minutes left.

  Julian

  I ran up a hill on Bittersweet Creek Road, my sides aching and my feet hurting from my cowboy boots. As I reached the top, a truck came out of a hidden driveway, and I ran right into it.

  Now a veteran of being hit by cars, I reached for my hat before it flew off.

  “You all right?”

  Goat Cheese? Are you kidding me?

  “I’m okay, but could you maybe give me a lift to The Fountain?”

  He squinted at me over the top of the driver’s-side door. “Yeah. I reckon.”

  Once I joined him, Goat Cheese puttered along the road at an old man’s pace, and I struggled to keep from slamming an imaginary accelerator into the floorboard in front of me. “Think we could go faster?”

  “We could.” The truck, however, did not speed up.

  We passed the volunteer fire station and the Long place. I envisioned Romy waiting for me at the bar, her face sad.

  “It’s important.”

  “That so?”

  “Yes.”

  Goat Cheese pushed down on the gas, accelerating from thirty miles an hour to a solid forty.

  “Quit your finger tapping,” Goat Cheese said around his cigarette. I hadn’t even realized what I was doing.

  “What do you think of Romy Satterfield?” Where had those words come from? It wasn’t any of his business. He didn’t know we were in the middle of a father-son talk.

  He snorted. “A girl like that? I think you’d better go kiss the ground she walks on and hope she doesn’t leave your sorry ass for that rich guy.”

  “Think I could do right by a girl like her?”

  “Hell, you’re the only McElroy I could ever stand. And I’ve known a lot of McElroys.”

  Goat Cheese pulled into The Fountain’s parking lot, having to park at the edge because there were so many people. I jumped out before the truck stopped moving but knocked on the window. He fumbled for the control on the driver’s-side door but eventually got it to roll down.

  “I owe you one. Oh, and glad we could have this little chat, Dad,” I said.

  Goat Cheese’s eyes went wide, and he almost choked on his cigarette. I left him to hack up a lung and puzzle it all out while I ran for The Fountain in the hopes I could make things right between Romy and me.

  Romy

  “Last call,” Genie said into the microphone at the DJ’s booth. “Bill’s kicking us out in ten.”

  Good thing I’d only managed to snag one beer, since I was about to drive myself home. Alone.

  Someone tapped me on the shoulder, and I pasted on a smile, steeling myself for whichever idiot had the audacity to disturb me when I clearly wanted to nurse a beer by myself.

  My heart refused to function at the sight of Julian. I leaned forward from my stool ready to embrace him when the rational part of me remembered just how late he was. No way was I letting him off the hook that easily. “You’re late.”

  He winced and mumbled something I couldn’t hear over Prince’s “1999.” “What was that?”

  “It was my damned alternator!” he shouted just as the song ended.

  I spewed my beer, my heart hammering against my chest.

  When I looked back at Julian, he had lowered himself to one knee and was holding out his mamaw’s ring. “Rosemary Jane Satterfield, would you do me the honor of being my wife . . . again? The right way, this time?”

  At this point the whole bar had stopped what they were doing to see what was going to happen next.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “What’s in it for me?”

  “I figure at least ten years of me groveling and some toe-curling sex.” He grinned. I found it hard to breathe.

  “Are you going to get rid of that farmer’s tan?”

  “I guess.” He hadn’t expected that question.

  “Will you marry me properly over at County Line with my minister?”

  His grin faded to something more serious. “For you? I’d do anything.”

  “Like drive a truck with a reliable alternator? You know, a Ford?”

  “Whoa! Let’s not get carried away.”

  I fought the smile as best I could. “Julian McElroy, I’ll keep you, Chevy and all.”

  He slipped the ring back on my index finger and stood to give me a kiss that brought whistles from our classmates. “I guess I’d better give you that dance before it’s too late.”

  He led me to the center of the sawdust-strewn floor. The DJ had started a slow pop song, but he cut it off mid-lyric. I thought we were too late for our long-awaited dance, but then I saw Genie bend over to whisper in his ear. He fumbled with his laptop before going to the microphone. “Ladies and gents, here’s our couple who’s actually been married longest: Mr. and Mrs. McElroy!”

  “You going to correct him about your name?” Julian whispered.

  “Are you?”

  “Not today, but how would you feel about being a Ledbetter?”

  “What?”

  “Long story.” He pulled me close as the opening strains of “Islands in the Stream” began to play. Ben and Genie danced together not far away, but there was a hint of space between them. A crowd had gathered around Jim Price, who was giving money to Beulah. It wasn’t even her class reunion, but I was glad to see her since I’d heard she was the only one to bet we were going to make it. Price looked up and yelled, “Hey, Romy, did you hit him on purpose the other day?”

  “Nope.”

  Price swore and stomped his foot. More money exchanged hands.

  Shelley Jean appeared at my side, dragging future husband number four to dance beside us. She leaned over to whisper, “Remember what I told you.”

  Julian flinched.

  I stage-whispered back, “He doesn’t have that problem with me.”

  She started to say something more, but her partner wisely guided her to another section of the tiny dance floor. Julian leaned in, his voice humming deliciously in my ear. “Are you about done?”

  “What fun is a high school reunion if you can’t cause a little trouble?”

  He
gave me that one-sided smirk, and I traced the thin white scar on the bottom of his chin before laying my head on his shoulder. Kenny and Dolly proclaimed they were islands in the stream, and I let myself think only of Julian as we swayed across the floor.

  The song faded away and Julian muttered, “Finally!” under his breath.

  “Wanna give them something to talk about?” he asked with a grin and a hint of the cocky teenage boy he’d once been.

  I took the bait. “Why not?”

  He cradled me into his arms so quickly I squeaked. And hoped my underwear wasn’t showing. “Julian!”

  “Hush, woman. We’ve got thresholds to cross!”

  “My purse!”

  Julian whirled me around. Genie handed me the small sequined bag, and I wrapped my arms around his neck.

  Over his shoulder, I saw her smile as Ben leaned over to kiss her cheek. As we went out the door, I heard Price calling for bets on how long we’d last this time, but there weren’t any takers.

  All these years I’d thought we were Romeo and Juliet while wishing we were Beatrice and Benedick. But Julian and I had never been neatly comedy or tragedy. As I twirled his mamaw’s ring, it hit me: We were a problem play, more like All’s Well That Ends Well.

  And with all that bitter past, I couldn’t help but look forward to the sweet.

  Fried Okra

  1 pound fresh okra

  ½ cup cornmeal

  ½ teaspoon onion powder

  teaspoon black pepper

  ½ cup vegetable oil

  Cut the stems off the okra and then cut each pod into pieces—about a half inch. Mix cornmeal, onion powder, and black pepper in a bowl that has a lid. Dump okra into the bowl, put the lid on, and shake your groove thing—and the okra—until it’s coated. Heat vegetable oil in a skillet—cast iron is always best. Dump the okra, but not the excess breading, into the oil and cook and stir it on medium heat until golden brown, about ten minutes? Fifteen minutes? As my father would say, “Until it’s done.” Fish okra out of the oil and put it in a paper towel–lined bowl for serving.