by Robert Inman
“A couple of weeks ago.”
“Yeah.”
Will sat down on the back of the trailer, facing Wingfoot. “Well, what have you been doing in the meantime.”
“Pondering.”
“And?”
“Well shit, Wilbur. What am I gonna say?”
“I hope you’re gonna say yes.”
“Why do you hope that?”
Will gave Wingfoot a long look. “How many women have you known in your life, Wingfoot?” he asked.
“Some.”
“Anybody like Peachy?”
Wingfoot shook his head.
“If you had to do without her, could you?”
Wingfoot pondered on that for a moment. “I have done without her.”
“And you have been…”
“Miserable.”
“Then you can’t do without her. She’s a magnificent woman. And that has nothing to do with all that Nashville business. She was magnificent before she went to Nashville and she’ll be magnificent when Nashville gets finished with her. Good God, man. When a woman writes a love song and calls you on the phone all the way from Kansas to sing it to you and then asks you to marry her…well, you’re a fool if can’t see. And you’ve waited two weeks? Pondering? Be a fool in love, but don’t be a fool in general.”
Wingfoot gave him a wry look. “You’re one to speak about fools in love, Wilbur.”
That hurt, especially with what had happened over the past couple of days, but he tried to keep it to himself. “It’s one thing to love somebody you can’t do without, and quite another to love somebody who can do without you. I seem to fall into the latter category, to my everlasting regret.”
Wingfoot stared at his hands. “Forget I said that.”
He started to tell Wingfoot about Saturday, about the phone call last night, but he didn’t. There was something delicate in the air, a mere breath of possibility, and he didn’t want to spook whatever it was. Instead, he asked Wingfoot, “Well, what do you think you oughta do?”
Wingfoot drew in a deep sigh. “I guess I oughta say yes, huh?”
Will made a face. “You know, Wingfoot, for somebody who otherwise seems to have his shit together, who seems like he’s gotten his life straightened out and overcome whatever kind of setback he had in the past, you sure are acting obtuse about this. Hell yes, you oughta say yes. Go upstairs and use my phone and keep calling all over East Jesus U.S.A. until you find her. And say yes as quick as you can before that magnificent woman changes her mind.”
Wingfoot rose and departed.
He was back a half-hour later.
“You did it?” Will asked.
“Yep.”
“Congratulations. Now go away and let me finish working on my equipment. Goddamn, Wingfoot. Coming over here and asking for advice to the lovelorn from somebody like me? You must be hard up.”
“Yeah. And hard up for a Best Man, too.”
“Well, I work cheap,” Will said. “If you’re asking.”
“Yep.”
“One other thing. Have you talked to Min about this?”
“Nope.” He paused a moment and then asked, “How do you think she’ll take it?”
“She’ll be just delighted, cousin. Just delighted.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah. That’s what I think.”
TWENTY-FOUR
Two nights later, Min called. Sobbing. “I need you!”
“I’m coming,” he said.
But first he called Wingfoot. “What did you say to Min?”
“I told her everything. About Peachy and the nursery and a lot of other stuff we’ve avoided talking about.”
“What was her reaction?”
“She said, ‘Well, then,’ and hung up.”
Will was on the banks of the Cape Fear by midnight. The house was dark, the doors locked. He went to the back yard and stood under the open second-floor window of Min’s bedroom and was just about to call up to her when he stopped himself. No. She was sure to have heard his truck pulling into the yard and stopping next to her car by the back door. She knew he was out here. Well, he could be as perverse as she. He slept in the back seat of her car, which she had neglected to lock. When he woke at first light the kitchen door was standing open. He could smell bacon frying.
He climbed the steps, opened the screen door and peered in. She was at the stove, her back to him. Bacon sizzled in one skillet, scrambled eggs fluffed in another, a pot of grits bubbled next to a platter piled high with pancakes. The Mr. Coffee gurgled on the counter. He kissed her on the cheek. She didn’t respond. He fetched a mug from the cabinet, poured a cup, and sat at the kitchen table sipping the hot coffee and coming fully awake, watching her broad, sturdy back. Waiting. When she finished with the bacon she took plates noisily from the cupboard, loaded them with breakfast, and brought them to the table. Enough there to feed a small army, he thought. Enough for a wedding feast. She sat across from him and they ate in silence. He ate what he could, but it made only a dent. Most mornings he had a bowl of shredded wheat and a banana for breakfast. He folded his napkin, tucked it under the edge of the plate, pushed his chair back with a scrape, and rose to get another cup of coffee.
“That’s why you’re so skinny,” Min said when he returned to the table. “Doing menial labor and eating like a bird. You look like a scarecrow with whiskers, Wilbur. Like some near-dead refugee.”
Will raised his cup to her in salute. “Okay Min, let’s have it.”
She speared a thick forkful of pancake and chewed for a good while, washing it down with a gulp of coffee. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Will set his cup down rather forcefully on the table, sloshing a little coffee. “Well, we’re gonna talk about it. I rousted my weary ass out of an easy chair last night and drove all the way down here…”
Min stared at her plate for a moment, then suddenly dropped her fork with a clatter and sprang to her feet. The chair went over backward and she bolted. She was out the door and headed for the stairs by the time Will could get up. He hurried after her, both of them bounding up the stairway. She was surprisingly quick for a hefty woman, and she was slamming her bedroom door behind her by the time he reached it. He banged on the door. “Min, open up!”
“Go back to Raleigh, Wilbur. Leave me alone.”
Will tried the doorknob. Locked. “You said you needed me, Min. Well by God, here I am. And I ain’t leaving until you tell me what it is you need. I’ll stand out here in the hall until you pee in your britches if I have to.”
“You don’t have to cuss, Wilbur. You never used to use profanity.”
“I do a lot of things I didn’t used to do.”
There was a long silence. He heard her footsteps, moving toward the other end of the room, over by the window. And then her voice, muffled and distant. “He’s leaving me.”
“He was never here,” Will said.
Then the footsteps coming back, fast now, the key rattling in the lock, the door flung open. There was a wild look in her eyes, her hair a mess where she had been clutching at it. “How’s she going to take care of him? She spends her time up on a stage shaking her tits and singing hillbilly songs.”
“How much do you know about Peachy?” Will asked.
“Enough,” she spat.
“She’s an intelligent and well-educated woman. She’s pretty and talented and graceful. She loves Wingfoot and he loves her.”
“You’re taking up for her?”
“I’m taking up for both of them. It’s the best thing that ever happened to either of them. And I told Wingfoot that if he didn’t grab that good woman before she gets away, he’s a fool. Damn right, I’m taking up for them.”
“Who do you think you are, giving advice?” Her voice lashed at him. “You can’t even hold onto your wife or your job.”
He fought the urge to fire back. One. Two. Three… “I am not the issue here, Min. You are.”
“Me? I’m not the one who’s running off
to Nashville, Tennessee. I’m perfectly happy right here at home, right where I’ve always been. I don’t need Nashville or Raleigh or any other place on earth.” She was beginning to cry now and the harder she fought it the worse it got. “I don’t need you or Wingfoot or anybody else. I never have and never will.” An angry slash of her hand. “Go on back to Raleigh. Take Wingfoot and Miss Peaches Whatever-Her-Name-Is with you. The lot of you can go to hell!”
“Her name is Peachy Delchamps. She and Wingfoot are getting married right here in Baggett House two weeks from tomorrow.”
“Here? No!”
“Yes. And as the mistress of Baggett House and Wingfoot’s closest living relative, you are by God going to be the gracious hostess or…”
“What?”
“I will whip your ass.”
Min’s mouth dropped open. She stared at him, bug-eyed, and then she seemed to shrink from him. She didn’t move a muscle, but something seemed to go out of her. “I’m not a hateful person,” she said in a tiny voice.
“No,” he said gently, “you are not a hateful person. You’re a very giving person. You’ve given too much, actually. But this thing, you need to give some more.”
She stumbled backward and sat down heavily on the edge of her bed, shoulders slumped, eyes downcast. “You don’t know…”
“And neither do you,” he said. “You’ve got blinders on, Min. Have had for thirty-five years.”
She looked up sharply. “What do you mean?”
Will took a deep breath. “You got stuck at eighteen,” he said. “And in a way, I got stuck at thirteen. When the plane went down, we all sort of froze. You with some warped notion of responsibility because Uncle French left you in charge. Wingfoot obsessed with West Point because Uncle French told him that’s what he needed to do. And me…”
“What about you?”
“You stole from me, Min. You stole my parents. You wouldn’t let me talk about ’em. You wouldn’t let me grieve so I could work my way through it.”
“So I’m to blame for all your troubles,” she said bitterly.
“Oh, no. I’m entirely to blame. Back yonder at the beginning I was a coward. I should have fought you. But I just did the easy thing. I stuck ’em back in a closet where they wouldn’t cause any trouble. I betrayed ’em. And then I went overboard in the opposite direction from what you did.” The words were pouring out of him now, giving voice to all that had been seething in him for weeks, maybe years. He could no more have stopped them than he could have stopped life itself. “I reinvented myself,” he went on. “A man with no history, no baggage to tote around. Only, the man I invented took over. Ate me alive. Became some sort of monster who was desperate to be liked, but held the people he was supposed to love at arm’s length. And then when all that invented stuff went South, I was nobody. I didn’t exist, Min. It’s one thing not to have a history. It’s a damned sight worse to cease existing.”
Min’s face twisted. “A man with no history. You’re not a Baggett,” she said. “You don’t care a thing…”
“And you care too much. Baggett’s just a name. We’re people, Min. Not a name, people. We stumble and fart around and try to make our way the best way we can. Me, Wingfoot, you, everybody. We try to grab a little love and grace where we can. And I’ll tell you what I’ve learned since I lost my wife and my job, Min. I’ve learned that a little love and grace is a helluva thing, and you better grab it when and where you can.”
She got up from the bed now and went to the window and stood there, arms wrapped tightly around herself, back rigid.
“Min,” he said, “I love you. I can’t ever make up for what you sacrificed for me and Wingfoot. I can’t take all that back and make it right. The only thing I can do is say what’s been begging to be said for a long time. And right now I’m saying that Wingfoot and I need you again. And we’re expecting you to do the right thing. If being a Baggett means so much to you, then act like one.”
She was crying again, shoulders shaking. Will felt a pang of remorse. Did he have to be so brutally honest? Well, yes he did. But it was hard, so very hard, for both of them. All Min had really ever wanted, he thought, was to be needed. And there at the beginning, after the plane went down, he and Wingfoot had needed her desperately. No matter what warped sense of responsibility she had, she had come through when they needed her. And then when they didn’t need her any more they had gone off to their separate lives and left her alone here in this crumbling old house, surrounded by ancient mahogany and boxes of trivia that made up some kind of past you could try to cling to. But mostly, just alone. She had maybe clung to a slender notion over the years that Wingfoot still needed her in some vague fashion, but now that was about to be dashed, too.
They stood there for a long time, the great silence of the old house broken only by Min’s soft whimpering. Finally she uncoiled her tightly-wound arms and rubbed fiercely at her eyes and then turned back to him, face ravaged. She tried to speak, but the words caught in her throat. She waited, tried again. “The wedding? Here?”
“It’s the only thing that will do,” Will said. “We are Wingfoot’s family and this is our home and he needs us.”
He turned then and left. When he climbed into his pickup he saw her standing at the bedroom window, watching him.
“I’ll be back,” he said.
*****
When the groom entered from the foyer, he was accompanied by his Best Man and the Best Man’s son, who was the ring bearer. It was perhaps a trifle unusual to have a ring bearer who was twenty-three years old, but then the entire business was a trifle unusual.
The bride, for instance, as she entered from the kitchen -- tall and stunning in a teal wedding gown -- stopped just inside the dining room door where her Nashville band, attired in teal tuxedoes with ruffled shirtsleeves, augmented by local musicians Pedro and Cisco, struck up a tune, a sweet and winsome melody. The bride sang lyrics of her own making:
You gotta move heaven and earth when it gets in the way of your heart;
‘Cause you gotta be with the one you love.
Several people in the audience cried. The ring bearer wiped away a tear or two, but the Best Man thought it might be partly due to his physical condition, he having spent the evening and much of the wee small hours celebrating the upcoming nuptials at Baggett’s Place over in Pender County with his cousins Wingfoot and Norville and a multitude of other folk, and having arrived back at Baggett House in a state of befuddlement. Now, with about three hours of sleep and the effects of the previous night still upon him, he was shaky and weepy. A hangover could make you emotionally raw, the Best Man thought, remembering his own similar experience. But all things considered, the ring bearer was bearing up fairly well. It was, indeed, an emotional moment.
For his own part, the Best Man had stayed at Baggett House last evening and spent a quiet few hours with Cousin Min, who was still in a melancholy mood and in need of his company. It seemed to have helped her spirits. She had plied him with an enormous supper and several glasss of scuppernong wine and they had talked at length of the family, of history, of the place and its time. They had not spoken of the things that had been said two weeks before. All that had needed to be said about that had been said then. Will had felt almost light-headed since then, as if some ungainly, lead-assed bird, long nesting in his brain, had taken flight through his ears.
And Min? She sat now dry-eyed on the front row of the audience in the place of honor customarily reserved for the mother of the groom. The parents of the bride were just across the aisle from her, the mother among the weepers, the father beaming proudly. When the bride finished her song, her father rose and joined her as she and the groom and the rest of the entourage assembled at the front of the room where Sheriff Billy Hargreave stood ready to perform the ceremony.
Will felt mildly splendid in his tuxedo, which Palmer had retrieved from the house on LeGrand a couple of days before. The tuxedo fit him comfortably for the first time in several years. And
for the first time in three months, he was off probation. There was no legal reason for him not to be in Brunswick County this fine August morning. He would have come anyway, as he had done two weeks before when Min had called, but there was now no need to fear the wrath of Judge Broderick Nettles of Wake County Superior Court. Judge Nettles, in fact, seemed to Will to be a figment of his distant past, as did much that had transpired in the recent few months. He had come, he thought, a long way.
The windows of the dining room were open to the mid-morning and a breeze off the Cape Fear River stirred what could otherwise have been a stuffy atmosphere. The dining room table was out in the yard now under the live oak tree, laden with the wedding feast. Its twelve lyre-backed mahogany chairs formed the first row of the seating arrangement in the dining room, filled in behind by folding vinyl-and-metal seats brought by Sheriff Billy from the Brunswick County Senior Citizen Center. Min had fussed a bit about that the day before when the dining room was being set up for the ceremony. Vinyl-and-metal was tacky, she said. Inappropriate. But there hadn’t been any alternative and it didn’t seem to matter here on the wedding day because all of the chairs were filled with people and you could scarcely tell one chair from another. Billy had promised that the vinyl-and-metal would be gone by nightfall.
The multitude included a good-sized contingent from the Nashville music industry, including a reporter from Country Cookin’ magazine who had arrived the afternoon before and stayed for supper and had pronounced Min’s stir fry vegetables in red-eye gravy sauce the best she had ever tasted (the recipe would appear in Country Cookin’s October issue); an assortment of Baggetts, friends of Baggetts, and Peachy fans from Pender County (Min was wary of them, but she had made a commendable effort to be gracious); several members of the 1993 Clemson University Women’s Basketball Team; a number of Mexican workers from Wingfoot’s and Peachy’s nursery business (one of whom provided a muted translation of the proceedings to the others); and a good-sized representation from Greenwood, South Carolina. They filled the chairs and spilled out into the adjacent foyer and the parlor beyond and then on out the front door and into the yard where speakers had been set up to broadcast the proceedings inside.