Eye of the Beholder

by Jackie Weger

  They sat on the porch. Phoebe’s eyes were glued fearfully to his.

  “Spill it,” he said.

  “It’s Ma and Pa and Erlene. They’re comin’.”

  “I know that.”

  “But you said you didn’t like surprises.”

  “I’m not surprised. We discussed it.”

  “They’re comin’ today.”

  “You called them?”

  Phoebe hesitated. “Do you mind?”

  “I don’t mind their coming. I mind you not telling me you called.”

  “How mad are you gonna get?”

  He retreated into himself for a few moments. “Don’t guess I’ll get mad at all.”

  “Gage! Truly?”

  He grimaced. “Now I’m nervous. Meeting prospective in-laws…”

  “Their bus gets in this afternoon. You can stay here. I’ll take Willie-Boy—”

  “I wouldn’t think of it. I’ll go with you to pick them up. We’ll take the car.”

  “But—”

  “No buts. I’ll get a shower.” He put his arm around her. “One thing I won’t forgive you for… had I known we’d have a houseful tonight, I’d’ve taken you up on that offer you made me this morning.”

  She was powerfully aware of his arm about her. Powerfully aware of the delicacy of the situation. “You’re certain we’re gonna get married no matter what? I don’t want to introduce you to Ma as my intended, then have to take it back.”

  “We’ll set it up with the pastor tomorrow after church. How’s that for positive?”

  Phoebe looked out over the yard. Willie-Boy was on his bike. Maydean and Dorie were playing drive-in in the old car. Ma and Pa and Erlene were assured a fine welcome. First thing Monday, she’d take her crab money and find them a place to live. All was so good with her world, she was beside herself.

  “Gage?” She put her hand on his knee, trailed it slowly up the inside of his thigh. “Can I wash your back?”

  — • —

  Willie-boy was the first to spot his parents. Ma Hawley smothered him in hugs “Oh, I’ve missed my best boy!”

  Phoebe felt suddenly shy at introducing Gage. “Ma, this is the man I told you about. We’re gonna get married. That’s why he wanted you to come. Gage, this is Ma. I reckon you can call her Annabelle. That’s my pa, Elmo, and that’s Erlene.”

  “You’re Phoebe, aren’t you?” Erlene said as Gage shook hands all around.

  “That’s right.”

  “I remembered.”

  Phoebe kept a weather eye on Gage as he took in her family. He couldn’t miss Pa’s walking sticks or Erlene’s childlike demeanor. Ma was shooting her questioning looks, but Phoebe gave an imperceptible shake of her head.

  Luggage was gathered, Erlene guided, and Pa directed. Willie-Boy filled in the conversational gaps telling about the junkyard, his bike, his welding career, and the terrible girl, Kimmie, who had tried to kiss him.

  “Have I ever been in a car before?” asked Erlene.

  “’Course you have,” Phoebe told her. She caught Gage glancing at Erlene in the rearview mirror. His expression was inscrutable.

  “I brought my knee pads,” said Elmo. “I mean to get in a winter garden. You said the land was fair rich?”

  “We already got potato hills in,” said Phoebe. “You don’t have to put in a garden for us, Pa. I’ll do that.”

  “I want to,” said Elmo. “I like to make myself useful.”

  Phoebe smiled over Willie-Boy’s head at Gage. “Hawleys can’t sit still for a minute.” Then to avoid any slips of tongue Phoebe plied question after question about Joey, Vinnie, the baby, neighbors. She talked of Maydean, Dorie, and crabbing.

  “I wasn’t expectin’ to find you set up with a man,” Annabelle said in the second Phoebe was trying to think up another conversational gambit.

  “Oh, Ma! You like to joke. Gage thinks I have wit, too. He said so. I promised you’d bake the weddin’ cake.”

  “Reckon I will, if you have the ingredients.”

  Phoebe was hoarse by the time Gage halted the car in front of the house. “Lor!” exclaimed Annabelle, eyeing him with respect. “Phoebe girl, you done good.”

  “There’s Dorie and Maydean. Ma look at Maydean. She’s gettin’ prettier. And this is Gage’s daughter, Dorie.”

  “I woulda knowed her anywheres by the way you described her in your letter,” said Annabelle.

  “On the telephone, Ma. I told you about Dorie on the telephone. This mornin’, when I called you.”

  “Telephone? But—oh, my, yes.” Annabelle went on quickly and smiled lopsided at Gage. “I’m gettin’ so I disremember about as bad as Erlene.”

  Gage took in the elderly woman, her red fussy face, the old man, stooped, maneuvering painfully on his canes and Erlene who had an innocence more profound than that of his own nine-year-old daughter. His gaze shifted to Phoebe. Her gamin face, framed now so innocently by the halo of curls, was a picture of guilt and duplicity. He’d been conned. The whole of the past two weeks had been nothing more than a hoax. Love, sex, joy. The good feelings. All a trick. All that he admired in Phoebe, her single mindedness, had been aimed at one goal; to find a place for her family. He’d been duped into offering his own. Gorge rose up in his throat.

  “I’ll leave Phoebe to get all of you settled,” he said with stiff civility.

  “Why, certain. We’ll just make ourselves to home.”

  “I’m sure you will.”

  His tone, the pasted-on smile sent a shiver of alarm racing down Phoebe’s spine. She trailed him out onto the porch. “Where you goin’, Gage?”

  “We’ll talk later,” he said, looking hard into her eyes.

  It was a warning. She felt the weight of reality crushing down on her. “You said they could come!”

  “I guess I just wanted to believe in magic, in fairy tales. You conned me from the instant we met. That letter you wrote the first day you were here… There wasn’t any job. It was to tell your parents you’d found a sucker, wasn’t it?”

  “I can make you understand.” She put her hand on his arm. He jerked away.

  “It hurts, Phoebe. I didn’t know it could hurt so much. First Velma, now you. He shook his head. “Being disillusioned twice in one lifetime is once too much for me.”

  She wanted to follow him to the car, plead with him to allow her to explain. She wanted to grasp his arm, keep him from leaving, but Erlene was trying to march past and Ma was calling her, exclaiming over the size of the house, the television, insisting Phoebe show her the bedrooms, the kitchen.

  Gage didn’t show up for supper. Phoebe sorted out the sleeping arrangements, which left her the sofa…or Gage’s bed. But she didn’t dare sleep there. She lay stiffly on the sofa, waiting, listening to night sounds—the occasional squawk of a gull, the muted chorus of crickets—listening for the sound of Gage’s car.

  — • —

  Gage drove up to the point that overlooked the bay. God had played a joke on him. He’d been vulnerable. He could see that now. Like all strong people, he’d taken his loneliness in stride—until Phoebe had burst upon his household and his heart.

  Phoebe had homed in on his vulnerability, and like a fool he’d just lapped up all the attention she’d bestowed on him. But now she’d filled his house with her family, and he knew unerringly that had been her goal from the moment she’d set foot on his property. And stupid as he was, he’d gone and left it to them.

  By damn, he’d go back. He’d… No, he couldn’t turn them out. He leaned his head against the door frame and closed his eyes. Visions of Phoebe leaped into his mind’s eye. He would let them stay. Maybe they’d soothe some of the pain in him.

  He would rest a bit, he thought. Rest, think, and plan. Then he’d go back to the house and give Phoebe all the misery she deserved.

  He would let her fuss and fume until she was dangling at the end of her precious pride. He’d show her how it felt to be a victim.

  — • —

>   The sun came up on a morning full of promise. Phoebe didn’t have eyes for the beauty of it.

  Ma Hawley had church on her mind. Phoebe pleaded a headache and watched her family drive out of the yard. Dorie sat between Ma and Pa to guide the way. Maydean, Erlene, and Willie-Boy sat cross-legged in the truck bed on a blanket to protect their Sunday clothes.

  Phoebe couldn’t face the disappointment of church; Gage had promised to speak to the preacher. She supposed now that whatever Christian spirit she’d resurrected in him had shrunk to nothingness. She had that cross of sin to bear. She had a terrible emptiness inside. She couldn’t decipher which hurt the most.

  She was washing breakfast dishes when she heard the front door slam. Her heart began pounding like a trip hammer.

  He stopped short when he came on her in the kitchen. Beard stubble was thick on his face. His clothes were wrinkled. The anguish in his eyes was easily read.

  Hawley pride was shredded, but there was enough left to prompt: “Are you full of liquor?”

  “Don’t talk to me.”

  “You still feelin’ sorry for yourself?”

  He turned on his heel. “I’m going to bed.”

  “Gage! Wait!”

  “For what? Another one of your plots designed to separate me from house and money?”

  “You didn’t have to go off last night. You coulda slept in your own bed. You coulda slept with me. You coulda listened!” She was talking to his back. Phoebe raced into the living room, scooped out her purse from beneath the sofa pillow. He was disrobing when she burst into his room.

  “Get out!”

  “Look!” She unzipped her purse, dragged out the bills. “This is what I got put by for a place for my folks. I never meant them to stay here. First thing Monday morning, I’m gonna find them a place.”

  “Good. Include yourself.” He kicked off his loafers and lay down on the bed.

  “I love you, Gage.”

  “Sounds glib now. How many men between Cottontown and Bayou La Batre have you told that?”

  “None! And you well know it.”

  “That was probably one of your tricks, too.”

  Wounded, Phoebe’s face flamed. “If I was bigger’n you I’d beat you up for sayin’ that.”

  He turned over, faced the wall. “You’re misdirecting the famous Hawley pride. It doesn’t affect me one way or another anymore.”

  Tears of frustration welled up in her eyes. “If I was Velma, I’d go out and drown myself, too!”

  He tugged the bedspread up over his head. “Don’t let that stop you.”

  A door slammed. Phoebe went to the window. Her family was back from church. “You can vex me Gage Morgan, but you better not be mean to my folks!” She lifted the bedspread off his face. His eyes were closed, his mouth parted, his breathing soft and regular. Phoebe leaned down and sniffed. He hadn’t been drinking.

  In her heart she was certain that he hadn’t flown into the arm of another woman, either. She was beginning to think sex was a trial to Gage. When they’d stepped from the shower yesterday afternoon his legs wouldn’t hold him.

  All wasn’t lost. She wouldn’t let it be. It was a matter of Hawley pride butting heads with Morgan pride. Pride was a good thing. Pride went before a fall. Pride… A sharp dart of misery enclosed her heart. Why hadn’t anybody ever told her that pride got in the way of love?

  — • —

  “We can’t stay?” Annabelle looked from Phoebe to the chicks. They were scratching in the rich sandy loam as Elmo turned up each shovelful.

  “I got a business now, Ma. I can help you. There’s just too many of us Hawleys for Gage to accept all at once.”

  “But you said in your letter—”

  “I wrote out of turn. And… I may have to move with you.”

  “Look at Pa,” Annabelle said. “Even on his knees he can turn a fair garden.”

  “Ma, you’re not listenin’ to me.”

  “There’s room aplenty for us here.”

  Phoebe shook her head. “It’s not the room—”

  “You just have to tell your man. I allus told Pa.”

  “Because you had to. Gage ain’t like that. I can’t… I want to be a Morgan.”

  “Once a Hawley allus a Hawley.”

  “You weren’t a Hawley before you married Pa.”

  Annabelle lifted her head. “You’re sayin’ I misrendered Hawley pride? Ain’t it allus got us—”

  “I don’t want backbone, Ma. I want Gage Morgan.”

  Phoebe was struggling with a new kind of angle on pride. But the words wouldn’t court her tongue, and Ma was steeped in her ways. She could see now that Hawley pride had been conjured up out of thin air.

  “You’ll give up your family to git him?”

  “I’ll never give you up. I’ve got to find a way for us all to fit.”

  “We ain’t goin’ back to Vinnie’s. She’s mean to Pa and Erlene.”

  Phoebe could see some things about the Hawleys from Vinnie’s point of view now. But it wouldn’t do to mention it. “You won’t have to. There’s work in Bayou La Batre. Tomorrow we’ll find a place to live and Tuesday I’ll take you over to the crab house.”

  “I don’t know nothin’ about crabs.”

  “It’s easier than pickin’ cotton. I got to cook dinner now. You want to choose somethin’ out of the freezer?”

  “Lor! I like just standin’ there staring into it. Will your man sup with us?”

  — • —

  Gage didn’t come out of his room until early the next morning. Phoebe heard him first in the bathroom, then stirring in the kitchen. She waited until she smelled coffee perking to move off the sofa and creep into the bath for her own ablutions. Now that it was short, her hair wasn’t so wild. She scrubbed her face, then pinched her cheeks, making them glow beneath her newly acquired tan.

  Gage was standing at the sink, staring out the window. The sun was only just beginning to cast a faint light on the horizon.

  “We’re getting out today,” she said.

  He turned to face her. Phoebe didn’t like the expression he wore. He wasn’t giving in. Her shoulders sagged, but out of long habit, she straightened.

  “The sooner the better,” he said.

  “What do I tell Dorie?”

  “You don’t have to tell her anything.”

  “What about the crab business? You takin’ it back?”

  “Have it. Last thing in the world I want is to be accused of starving the Hawley clan. Might ruin my image in the community.”

  Phoebe almost buckled under his sarcasm. “Are you ever gonna get over bein’ mad?”

  “What I’m going to get over is you.”

  “I was wrong. Hidin’ my motives from you.”

  “Makes my heart swell with Morgan pride hearing you confess the errors of your ways.”

  Hawley vainglory may have been conjured out of thin air, but gumption within Phoebe was solid as good concrete. It was so hard and thick in her she could taste it. She saw Gage through the haze of recent memory, their love and loving slowly disintegrating, breaking into hundreds of tiny fragments. The kitchen was warm. She was cold and she gambled it all.

  “I ain’t grovelin’. I ain’t beggin’.” She was holding herself stiff as a metal rod, her fists clenched. “I ain’t beggin’ anyone for anything! You don’t want me, ever. Say so. Say it plain without soakin’ your words in meanness. Just plain up and say goodbye. I won’t even speak to you on the street.”

  “Phoebe!”

  The voice came from behind and was filled with panic.

  Phoebe didn’t take her eyes from Gage. “Go back to bed, Maydean. Now!”

  “Erlene’s gone.”

  For a moment everything went out of focus. Phoebe felt scared. But Gage was standing there, looking at her, seemingly holding his breath, his mouth so close to shaping words she didn’t dare move.

  “I’ll help you look for your sister,” he said. “If she’s slipped outside she could get
hurt in the yard.”

  “Check all the bedrooms, Maydean.”

  “I already did. And the living room and the bathroom. She ain’t in the house. I thought she was in here with you and Gage. That’s why—”

  Gage went out the door.

  Shaken, Phoebe untensed all in a rush. “Go wake Ma and Dorie. They can help us look.”

  Two hours later the sun was full up and there was still no sign of Erlene.

  “She’s drowned!” wailed Annabelle. “She walked off the land into the water and just kept on walkin’ till the ocean swallowed her up.”

  Phoebe stroked her mother’s arm. “She wouldn’t do that, Ma. She don’t hardly like to take a bath.”

  “Erlene wanders off and wanders back,” put in Elmo. He crabbed on his walking sticks to the kitchen table and sat down. “In between times, can we eat?”

  “Maybe she got snake bit and—”

  “Shush that, Willie-Boy.” Phoebe glanced up as Gage entered the kitchen. He shook his head.

  “I searched the far reaches of the yard. The gate was open—”

  Phoebe gripped the back of a chair to steady herself. “I didn’t lock it last night, and you—” Gage had been in his room at dusk. The thought brought all that was unsettled between them rushing back. “That’s what Erlene’s done. Wandered outside the yard. I’ll take the truck—”

  “Willie-Boy and I can ride our bikes and look,” said Dorie. “We can go down to the point.”

  “If it’s all right with your pa,” Phoebe said, watching Gage for his reaction. He nodded.

  Phoebe hated laying out her sister’s shortcomings in front of Gage. But Erlene couldn’t help being simpleminded. “I’ll take all the side roads. We may have to knock on doors. Erlene will follow a cat or dog…”

  “I’ll start up at the main road and work my way back,” Gage said.

  “What about work?”

  “It’ll keep.”

  “Did we look under beds?” asked Annabelle distractedly. “I recall that once—”

  “We did, Ma. Make some coffee and sandwiches, why don’t you?”