Dress Codes for Small Towns

by Courtney Stevens

  Janie Lee and Davey both give some version of “That’s not what anyone meant,” but there is nothing else to mean.

  “Easy, Billie,” Davey says, propeller arms stretching slowly to me.

  My body is a rolling boil in this shitty barn pot. The stale barn air licks my nose. I am having an emotional earthquake. If I fall I won’t land on hay. The world tilts. Chairs and tables shimmer like holograms. If I fall I will break things.

  “Billie.” Thom tries to calm me from just below; I suppose he has heard it all. If I speak—ask for help—the weight of words will tip my balance. My arms seesaw wildly.

  A tear splats on a table below. My sunglasses shake away from where they were tucked in the front of my shirt. I don’t know where they end up, only that I heard them land on something solid.

  “Deep breath.” Davey sounds as if he’s inside my head. He stretches out a blurry hand. I am spinning. I try to make contact.

  This slight adjustment wrecks my remaining balance.

  I am falling. Time slows down. I don’t scream. Or if I do, it’s lost in Thom yelling and Gerry squealing. Davey grabs me—a mistake. My momentum is too strong and he’s not anchored to anything.

  We go over the edge, each of us throwing an arm around the beam. My chin slams into the wood. I bite my tongue, and lose my hold. I drop again. I am suspended by my fingertips, mouth and eyes exploding with fear. Falling is inevitable. And to think: I was worried about festivals and first dances. Janie Lee screams; Davey says, “It’s going to be okay”; Thom’s crashing below, as he upends tables and creates space: they are all so loud. So very, very loud. My head has gone quiet in preparation.

  I fall first.

  Davey is right behind me.

  33

  Having Thom Cahill as a friend is the luckiest thing that has happened, perhaps in my life. He breaks my fall without my breaking him. But even Thom Cahill cannot be in two places at once. No one catches Davey.

  Thom and I are heaps on the barn floor. There is copper liquid swirling in my mouth. When I touch my fingers to my tongue, they come away red. I move my jaw back and forth, making sure it isn’t broken from where I hit the beam. My elbow collided with Thom’s massive shoulder at some point. I am already sore, but I can’t pinpoint a particular source.

  Thom is groaning, but not the scary kind. Beside us, Davey is making a terrible noise. Thom untangles himself from me. We stumble-crawl to Gerry, who is already at Davey’s side telling him he’ll be okay. There’s a compound fracture in his arm, three inches above his wrist, that I can hardly bear to look at. He absorbed the majority of the shock with a tuck and roll, but the impact had to go somewhere. Gerry leans over his chest, blocking his view of the blood.

  I rest my hand on his bandanna and sweep his hair backward. It is greasy from the game and stays wherever my fingers leave it. He closes his eyes when I touch him, and I wonder if it’s from pain or relief. I can’t be angry with him right now.

  His head lolls toward me. He’s grimacing, but trying to be brave. “Are you okay?” he asks.

  I nod and Thom distracts him with bad jokes. He winces, and Thom mouths to Gerry that we shouldn’t let him move. But he’s drumming the planks of the barn with his good hand, and sitting up on his own.

  Woods jumps the last few rungs to the barn floor, the Hexagon hot on his heels. Janie Lee is a smeared mess of emotions.

  I want to think: Good for her.

  But really I think: I’m sorry this all went to shit.

  “What happened?” Woods asks, removing his sweatshirt and draping it over the place where the skin is broken. Davey yelps, but Woods is talking about contaminants and keeping it as sterile as possible. Lifeguard talk, I’m sure.

  “I knocked him down,” I say.

  “Don’t listen to her. I was trying to be a hero,” Davey tells Woods.

  “Anything else hurt?”

  “Everything hurts, but I don’t think anything else is broken,” Davey admits. His eyes are on Thom and me. “You two okay?”

  We assure him we are.

  “Let’s get to the hospital,” Woods says, but then Fifty says, “I already called 911. You’re welcome.”

  “Asshole,” Woods and I say together.

  “What?” Fifty says.

  Janie Lee has an answer for this. “Every person in town with a scanner will hear. And you-know-who will show up and report on this. Which is the last thing Billie’s family needs.”

  Judith at the Lamplighter is married to her scanner. Rumor has it, her husband, Roger, said he’d divorce her if she didn’t throw it in the lake and Judith said, “If it’s you or the scanner, I’m picking the scanner.” Because the most exciting thing Roger does in a day is move his toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other.

  But with the ambulance ordered, we have no choice but to wait for the EMTs to arrive. We make sure we’re outside the barn and looking innocent. The two twentysomething guys accept the answer of “horseplay” as a reason for the injury, but one says to the other, “We used to walk this damn thing when we were kids. Remember when Beau fell?” Davey climbs aboard with them, and as we watch the ambulance make the first turn toward the hospital, everyone downloads the shock of the situation at the same time.

  “He’ll be okay,” Thom says reassuringly, heading toward the Audi so we can follow the ambulance. Only when I’m standing in front of the car do I realize the one fallibility of the Audi. There is a back shelf, but I cannot ride there. Which means I’m stuck with Woods and Janie Lee. In his truck.

  I wedge myself against the door and close my eyes, silent. And they are silent. Everyone knowing what everyone knows, and no one having a clue where to begin. I’m glad they don’t try. They’ve said enough. Did they all kiss me for pity as well? Did they all have a little meeting and say, “You know what, let’s make Billie feel really loved and special?” Because thanks, no thanks.

  We park near the emergency room, and Gerry strides over, warrior-like, cleans some of the blood from my face, and walks me arm-in-arm through the sliding glass doors. Inside, there is nothing to do but smell rubbing alcohol and sanitizer and avoid Judith’s questions. She is here, as predicted, with her ever-present pen and yellow legal pad, desperate to make the story before the paper goes to print. “Why were you in the barn?” and “Were you present at the time of the injury, Ms. McCaffrey?” and “This is the second time you’ve called 911 this fall. Any comment on that?” and “You know, that barn has a reputation for its beam. Beau Wilson, ten years ago—he fell off the beam after a dare,” she says.

  I excuse myself, leaving her questions for Woods. He started this. He can finish it. I have blood on my shirt, and Gerry drags me to the bathroom and makes me swap with her. It’s a small thing, but I’m thankful. Within thirty minutes, the room fills as the news spreads through town. A mishmash of details and drama will often make ambulance chasers of the whole town. My mom’s rationale: “Well, when you know everyone, it’s bound to be someone you know.”

  My parents show up and offer to pray. Dad’s eyes flick to the broken skin and the purplish bruise that is spreading from my chin. He asks if I am okay with his eyes, as everyone makes a circle and bows their heads. I nod that I am. I pray along. Everyone has his or her eyes closed in a different way except me. Some squeezed painfully shut. Some resting. Some fluttering. Some leaking.

  “Do they think he’s dying?” Gerry inquires when the prayer is over and we return to our seats. “I mean . . . his arm is broken, not his neck.”

  I give her a weak smile. “This is just Otters Holt being Otters Holt.”

  “It’s very charming,” she tells me.

  John Winters arrives an hour later. By now a nurse has told us that Davey is doing fine. Mr. Winters is in his gym clothes, looking frazzled and afraid, like maybe he drove triple digits to get here. Mash sits up straight when his uncle appears. I’m straight-backing it too. As is Hattie, like there’s a grenade in the waiting room. But he doesn’t yell. He asks Hatt
ie some whispered questions and takes a seat across the room. Which still makes everyone uncomfortable, but not as uncomfortable as we expected.

  Janie Lee risks speaking to me. “Can we talk? Not here, though.”

  I let my eyes stay at her feet, as if she is undeserving of my eye contact. But really I am ashamed. Ashamed that she assessed me and found me incompetent. The exact opposite of who a Corn Dolly nominee should be.

  “Please,” she says, and I’m stirred to at least listen.

  We move slowly away from the crowd because I’m too stiff to move quickly. We follow the white-tiled hallway, through multiple sets of double doors. Elevators are to the right, exterior doors to the left. She leads us into starlight and fresh air. A breeze knocks my hair loose from its pins, and she says, “You know I’m sorry.”

  I don’t doubt this.

  Thin wisps of clouds cover the nearly full moon. She thinks of taking my hand, but draws hers back. I know her. She’s wishing for pockets. But the little shorts she wears are pocketless and she’s forced to grip her own hands instead of mine. How can I read her body language at this level and have missed something so colossal?

  “I do,” I say, finally.

  “We made a mistake, but we thought we were doing the right thing. Can you understand that?”

  I nod. But my understanding the error doesn’t change the error.

  She has one more thing to say. “We all love the hell out of you, and I hope you love the hell out of us back. Or at least enough to forgive us.” And then she kisses my cheek and goes back inside.

  With the Hexagon, there have been many predetermined endings. So much of our time together starts with Einstein, followed by Woods saying We will about something, and us replying Of course we will. Most of the time, we get what we want by virtue of wanting it badly enough.

  Can I blame them for doing what we’ve always done?

  But not everything can be mapped on Einstein. Not love. Not self-esteem. Maybe not even Harvest Festivals.

  My love is wily, guileful even. Uncontrollable. Maybe theirs is too.

  “I don’t know what will happen,” I say to the sky.

  And Thom, who has slipped up beside me, says a good friend thing. “You don’t have to, McCaffrey.”

  Thom is sturdy, the kind of person you can fall twenty feet on. I say, “Thom, how do you feel about Octagons?”

  He says, “I failed geometry,” and we both laugh.

  Four hours later, the doctors release Davey to the care of his parents.

  As I fall asleep that night, I realize one last ironic thing: not a single one of us voted for the Corn Dolly.

  34

  Davey’s Part

  It started with a newspaper article, written by Judith, an ambitious and insecure reporter at the Lamplighter. Two color pictures—one of me in the hospital, one of Billie donating money at the pitcher’s mound—are positioned beneath the headline: LOCAL TEENS: HELPING OR HURTING? The bold, smaller line below says: Should the youngest Corn Dolly nominee in history be disqualified? The subsequent article has pictures of a Bible, meant to represent Big T’s. Judith has interviewed someone present at the Fork and Spoon the morning we set this thing in motion. Someone who rightfully questioned the authenticity of our claims.

  Our threesome marches up the library sidewalk and through the plain glass door. There’s a Save the Harvest Festival flyer taped to the inside bulletin board and an ad for an upcoming chili supper at Community Church. The Marshall County Library: Otters Holt Branch is a festive little place—festive as any building with that many brown items can be. Brown shelves, brown carpet, brown walls. Even the two librarians have brown hair and brown eyes. I wonder if it’s in the job description. Nashville’s libraries have gone white and modern, but this reminds me of Waylan Academy’s reference section. I wish Thom were here to see me try this thing. He’d look up balls in the Oxford Dictionary and read a false definition that included my name.

  But Thom is not here, and I have Woods and Janie Lee as my seconds today. The Harvest Festival committee is meeting one last time. Topics on the docket: Billie’s candidacy and discontinuing the festival. We know this courtesy of Abram, who went on a bowling date with Martha Bittlebee. As Woods said, “He rang me up last night and told me the scuttlebutt.” Woods said he used the term “snookie” in the description of Martha, and “Lord-a-mercy” in the description of the committee. Basically, we have a seventy-five-year old informant who is saying if we’re going to act, we need to act now, and he’s willing to put snookie on the line for the matter.

  The latest issue of the Lamplighter is spread in front of every member. Twelve in total. Judith sits two chairs down from Ada May Adcock. She has punchy eyes that remind me of a grasshopper’s.

  Woods has promised I can do the talking, since I did so little of it when he and Janie Lee formulated and executed this half-cocked plan. I very carefully avoided any form of painkiller this morning so I would be better suited to the task. My arm is throbbing, but that’s not where my mind is.

  The committee doesn’t know what we’re here to say, only that we’ve interrupted their sacred gathering. No one seems happy about it. Several eyes drift accusingly toward Martha, who has the reputation of a large mouth.

  I set Big T’s Bible on the table and begin when Ada May flourishes her arm, as if we are taking up precious time and should be snappy with what we came here to say. Wilma Frist slides the Bible in front of the paper and begins to thumb through the tissue-thin pages. I try not to get distracted by Big T’s ghostlike presence in this room.

  Without going into detail, I paint them a picture as if I am back in debate club and this is my opening argument.

  “We have a friend. Her name is Billie. You probably know her,” I say, because they all do. “But . . . do you know she is the sort of person who will be a pallbearer at your funeral, who jumps into snake-infested water, who makes Book Dollies and newspaper couches, who prays, who cleans up elementary schools, who sticks by her friends, even when it costs her public embarrassment?”

  I let that land in their hearts.

  “She is an atypical candidate,” I add, and then address the paper, picking it up and pointing at the large Times New Roman font. “But she deserves to be a nominee. Even if she doesn’t win.”

  “But what about the fire?” someone in the corner says.

  “I started that,” Woods says. “It was an accident, but it was all me.”

  “And the stunt at Vilmer’s Beam?” someone else presses.

  “That was me,” Janie Lee offers.

  “Typical,” Judith mumbles, and then gets down to a serious interrogation. “Mr. Winters, did you or did you not lie to Ada May and Wilma about her being in that Bible?”

  Everyone except for Wilma leans their bifocals in our direction.

  “That was me again,” Janie Lee says.

  “It was both of us,” Woods says. He touches Janie Lee’s hand for support. He can’t bring himself to look around the room at so many of his friends.

  Before anyone throws another question at us, I say the rest of what I came here to say. “I knew my granddad well enough to say that if he thought this was the last Harvest Festival, he would never disqualify Billie McCaffrey. And what I don’t understand is why this group would waste time on this discussion rather than putting your full attention toward saving the Harvest Festival. You say you care about what Big T wanted, but do you? Because everyone in this room knows he loved that festival. As far as I can tell, only three of us in this room have done something about making sure it lasts.”

  Wilma Frist pushes the Bible into the middle of the table and says, “Luke 1:6, ‘Elizabeth was a respectable woman.’ The phrase is underlined. Look at the note,” she tells the committee. They stand. They gather. They read.

  We do the same.

  Out to the side of Luke 1:6, Tyson Vilmer wrote Billie McCaffrey’s name.

  Holy hell. None of us saw that coming.

  “It might n
ot say Corn Dolly, but it might as well,” Ada May declares.

  And everyone nods.

  No one more than Woods Carrington.

  We leave the library knowing she might not win, but she won’t be disqualified.

  35

  There are three things I have always loved about fall in Otters Holt.

  The smell.

  When I was younger, Grandy had a stellar imagination. She claimed that Otters Holt had weather fairies. Allegedly, the fairy folk poured gallon jugs of Downy fabric softener over a herd of John Rexler’s cattle to make the smell. She then claimed Gene built his old windmill just for the expediency of spreading Aroma-cow over the county. This audacious image returns whenever I take a deep breath of pollen. I love Grandy for it.

  The safety.

  Small towns have invisible domes that keep the rest of the world out (and most of their people in). We’ll happily tell others what they’re missing. Playing outside, unlocked doors, stopping at a neighbor’s house for a glass of water. We’ll even argue we know what fun is and you don’t. Like watermelon hooch or driving a tractor when your parents take away your car privileges.

  Last but not least . . . I love this one perfect day of fall . . . the Harvest Festival.

  I’m thinking about these three things as I sit on the rug in Dad’s office, running my finger down the spines of old concordances and commentaries. They are the heaviest books we own. I loved them as a child. Not for their content, but because they made the best mazes for my toy cars. I whiled hours away on this rug. I’d been happy then, and Dad had been happy with me.

  I ask what the deacons are saying and he tells me, “I am less concerned about deacons than I have ever been.”

  One week before, I would have been happy with this news. But the deacons aren’t talking to him because they’ve switched to talking about him. Church leaders are not like tides. You can’t set your clock to high and low a week or month in advance. They take a notion, and they turn quickly, suddenly. And once they have . . . there is very little turning back.