“I know. I see the results daily. One more small thing. I believe you should take a coffee break and come over here.”
“Why?” His voice rose.
“Why not?” My voice was playful.
He was by my side before I blinked. I showed him the AP wire and swore him to say nothing, not so much as a syllable until fifteen minutes before the noon news when Mother would be telling Wheezie.
“What I sacrifice for you.” He mocked sorrow and then maliciously, with a smile, said to John: “This will go down as the most expensive blow job in history.”
John could not bear gay men but he did laugh. So did Roger. By now Arnie and the guys from the back were stooped over the machine, too, all of them laughing.
Mr. Pierre kissed me on the cheek. “You are a true friend, darling, to give me such pleasure. I shan’t forget this.”
“Good. You can be on my fence committee for the Tri-Delta horse show.” I pushed him toward the door as he sputtered a refusal, which settled into a rancorous agreement.
He paused at the door and dramatically threw his bottle-green scarf with thin yellow stripes around his neck. To those assembled he said, “The Bakkers are a good example of why some animals eat their young.” He exited amidst laughter.
28
LOVE LIFTED ME HIGHER
TUESDAY … 21 APRIL
Orrie Tadia blew back into town today at noon. Although her airplane touched down in Baltimore at nine-thirty A.M. and it couldn’t have taken more than an hour and a half to reach Runnymede with her son-in-law, Mac Marshall, driving, she lurked on the edges of town until noon. Noon, even in bad weather, meant the Square would be filled with anybody who was anybody and Orrie would not be denied her entrance.
Lolly Mabel, Pewter, Michelle, and I were cutting across the Square to peek inside the old Bon Ton building, since we couldn’t believe what John told us about Diz buying the thing. No sooner had we reached the midpoint of the Square—now a riot of blooms, since both sides competed even in gardening—than we heard a horn honk. Then another one. Soon the horns were honking around the Square. Mutzi Elliott dashed out of his greengrocer store with his cowbell. Lolly started barking and Pewter growled. The girls hate loud noises.
Mother and Mr. Pierre ran out of Daddy’s hardware store. Louise was coming down the steps of the library, without books this time. Aunt Wheezie, her devout Catholicism notwithstanding, had lectured Mother and me the night before at dinner on the meaning of karma. She hated being behind her sister in hearing the PTL news and covered up with a burst of religious mysticism and refinement. She also told me more than I ever wanted to know about soul travel. She said she would be practicing leaving her body tonight when she went to sleep. I asked her if she would come visit me at the farm and she said no, she’d always had a hankering to see Paris. Mother wanted to know what happened to Louise’s body during her travels and Louise replied that her body stayed in the bed. Mother suggested that while Wheezie’s soul was out there in the Great Beyond, she might want to pick up a new body, a younger model. This didn’t go down with Aunt Louise, and dinner at Luigi’s plunged into recrimination.
Whether or not that affected my aunt’s reading habits, I don’t know. But when she saw Orrie in the front seat of Mac’s convertible, heard the horns, heard the cowbell, she hurried down the steps as fast as she could.
Orrie, like an aged and hefty prom queen, waved to us and we waved back.
Michelle was curious. “Does she usually get this kind of greeting upon her return?”
“No. We’re glad to see her, of course, but this is unusual.”
We walked toward the library. The Bon Ton could wait. Orrie and Mac headed, with majesty, for the library. When the convertible pulled up next to the curb there was a joyous screaming and hugging known only to Southern women. Mother and Mr. Pierre were also heading toward Orrie.
As Michelle and I came up behind the car we saw on the rear bumper this sticker: HONK IF YOU’VE BEEN MARRIED TO MAC MARSHALL. Mom and Mr. Pierre saw it about the same time we did.
Orrie, after more hugs from Louise, sharply turned. “Nickel Smith, what’s so funny? I haven’t seen you since Christmas and this is the greeting I get?”
“Orrie, you look tanned and wonderful.” The truth.
“We’re laughing because of your sticker.” Mother smiled but with a tart edge.
“What sticker?” Orrie flounced in her seat, bathing in the attention.
Louise trundled up behind the car. “Oh, Orrie, you’d better see this yourself.”
“I don’t want to get out of the car. Mac, what are they talking about?”
Mac’s trim moustache twitched. “I don’t know.”
As mothers-in-law go, Orrie wasn’t so bad but Mac wisely decided to check out the back of his car. He sauntered up and observed his bumper. We were quiet. Mac’s face turned red.
“Well?” Orrie demanded.
“Mother Tadia, it says, ‘Honk if you’ve been married to Mac Marshall.’ ”
“It does not. You’re making this up.” She heaved herself out of the car and came around. “It does!” Without blinking she wheeled on Mother. “Julia, you’re behind this.”
“Orrie, now why would I drive all the way to Baltimore to put a sticker on Mac’s car? Be reasonable.”
“Orrie, darling, so chic and, well, tropical, look at it this way—the only time there was more celebration in this town was Armistice Day in 1918.” Mr. Pierre charmed her.
“You weren’t here in 1918,” Louise corrected him.
I couldn’t resist. “No, but you were.”
Before Louise could hot up, Mr. Pierre returned his attentions to Orrie. “I shall expect you at my establishment at your earliest convenience. You look so youthful, Orrie, we need to change your hairstyle. Away with the old. Banish age. Let’s say hello to youth.”
Orrie ate it up. “See you tomorrow morning.” She waved to Mutzi. “Hey, Mutzi, I want pattypan squash!”
“Too early,” Mutzi hollered back.
“Start thinking about it.” She climbed back in the convertible. Mac obediently followed. “Now, ladies and gentlemen, I must unpack and settle myself after my long journey. I’ll be receiving tomorrow.”
Off they drove.
Michelle and I stayed on the sidewalk and walked around the Square over to the Bon Ton.
“Orrie’s after-dinner drink is Kaopectate and she sneaks gin in it.” I sighed, thinking of the Orrie of my childhood and the Orrie of today, the same delightful person with the addition of a few decades.
“What’s the meaning of the bumper sticker?”
“That? Mac’s been married three times and two of those times to Orrie’s daughters. She has four, you know.”
“I forgot, if I did know. Trying to remember everyone’s genealogies is difficult.”
“I know. I’ve lived here all my life and I can’t keep them straight either, what with second cousins, third cousins, and shirt-tail cousins. Anyway, Mac lives in Baltimore with the daughter to whom he is currently married, and let’s hope it lasts. Orrie’ll kill him if it doesn’t.”
“Where’s his ex—the other sister?”
“Jackson Hole, Wyoming. After the divorce, that girl sling-shotted out of here. Wife Number One, ex-wife, I mean, lives in Red Lion, Pennsylvania.”
We stood in front of the Bon Ton, peeking in the windows.
“Looks the same.” Michelle pressed her nose against the window.
“Sure does. Let’s go over to Falkenroth, Spangler, and Finster for a minute.”
She obediently followed. A new window had been installed immediately after the cannon episode. Looked like Falkenroth, Spangler & Finster had better relations with their insurance company than I did. Not a word yet on my Jeep or a penny either. The sign painter, Peepbean Huffstetler, carefully outlined the “R” in Spangler as we opened the front door.
“Hello, Peepbean.”
He grunted. That was hello.
The place see
med vacant, as it was lunch hour, but we heard a rustle in the back.
“Yo,” I called out.
George Spangler, in lime-green pants, answered. “Who is it?”
“Nickel and Michelle.”
He softly walked down the little hallway. “To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure, ladies?”
“You were practicing your putting, weren’t you, George? The Willow Bend championship’s coming up in June.” I hoped that would disarm him a bit. It did.
“Well—”
“This is going to be your year, George.” I glided on to my next subject. “Do you know the closing date for the sale of the Bon Ton?”
“Friday.”
“Good for the town. Line up those putts, buddy.” I smiled and left, and as I went through the door it hit George what he’d done.
“Nickel—” He trotted after us. “Diz doesn’t want anyone to know.”
“Why? It’s good news.”
“He’s funny that way. Wait until the deed is recorded.”
“George, I’m a reporter. I won’t use your name, okay?”
His face registered relief and dismay simultaneously. “ ’Preciate that.”
I liked George but I didn’t respect him. He had inherited just enough money to make a bum out of him. His only effort was in obtaining his law degree from the University of Virginia back in 1971. If he drew up a will or a deed a month, that was sweat for him. It’s hard for me to believe a man without a vocation has balls. Since he rarely worked, he was a great source of gossip because his whole life was one long social exchange. You might say that George was the original party boy. The road map of broken veins on his face was proof of that.
As Michelle, Lolly, Pewter, and I cut across the Square the talons of fear gripped my gut. I didn’t want the Clarion to go to Diz. I didn’t want it to go to anybody but me.
“How are things with Roger?” I asked Michelle.
“He’s a nice guy.”
“That sounds noncommittal.”
“What’s it to you?”
“Don’t get testy. I’m being friendly, not nosy. I think the world of Roger and I’m even starting to like you too.”
She changed the subject. “Do you think your mother was behind that bumper sticker?”
“Yep. She must have paid someone to do it. Orrie is Louise’s best friend. Now that she’s back Mother will need me as an ally.”
“What’s going on with Ed Tutweiler Walters?”
“Michelle, I believe you might turn into a Runny yet. You’re evidencing an interest in gossip.”
“I prefer to think of it as news.” She picked up a stick and threw it for Lolly.
“As far as I know, Ed divides his time between them when he isn’t with the BonBons.”
“Wonder when he’s going back to Birmingham?”
“I don’t know. It must be fun to be retired—and have a little money, you know? Ed can come and go as he pleases. I can’t imagine that.”
“Me neither. I don’t think I want to stop working. My dad retired at sixty-five last year. He built and ran a window treatment plant.”
“What?”
“He made blinds, shades, window treatments.”
“Oh.”
“Ever since he retired he’s been sick, one complaint after another. Mother’s irritated because he’s underfoot, and much as he loves sailing, how much can he sail? I told him to start another business or to get involved with young people starting businesses. Be a consultant. I think the reason for Mom’s brief visit was less to see me than to get away from Dad.”
Out of the corner of my eye I noticed Jackson Frost bearing down on me. Jackson paid his respects to Michelle and then said in a too casual voice, “You putting the paper to bed tonight?”
“I do every Tuesday.” I tried to be casual myself.
“Might see you later.” He bid us good day and left.
“He really is the best-looking man in Runnymede,” Michelle chirped.
“Yep.” I had a lump in my throat.
True to his word Jackson came over to the Clarion at nine-thirty. Lolly greeted him by rubbing her head against his legs. Pewter waited for Jack to come to her.
“Hi.”
“Hi,” I answered.
“I got used to seeing you Tuesday night.” I didn’t reply, so he continued. “I’m sorry, Nickel.”
“Me too.”
His white teeth gleamed in a half smile. “What was it you said to me once? ‘Monogomy is contrary to nature but necessary for the greater social good.’ I don’t know whether I believe it or not.”
“I don’t know if I do either, but there isn’t an alternative, or if there is one I don’t know about it.”
He sat opposite me. “Whatever happened to the sixties?”
“We got married and had children, I guess.”
“You didn’t.” He stuck his finger in a cup on my desk filled with blue pencils and he rattled them around. “Sometimes I envy you and sometimes I think you missed the boat.”
“I think that too—sometimes.”
“Do you miss me?”
“Of course I miss you, but what good does it do to talk about it? I have to admit that I’m relieved.”
“I’m not,” he said matter-of-factly.
“Weren’t you ever worried about Regina finding out?”
“Not as much as you were.”
“Sometimes I don’t understand you.”
“I don’t want you to understand me—I want you to love me.” His beautiful blue eyes lit up.
“Please, let’s give the word love a rest.”
“Gene and I have been married for twenty-two years. Your relationship changes over those years. I think I’m blessed with a good marriage, but to tell you the God’s honest truth, if she went out and had herself a rip-roaring affair I wouldn’t be jealous.”
“No, you’d feel justified for what you’ve done.” I didn’t feel like being generous.
“Maybe, but you haven’t been married for decades. You don’t know how it feels. And furthermore, don’t tell me how I feel or what I feel. I know I wouldn’t be jealous. We’re so close, Gene and I, but that heady, lusty, can’t-live-without-you stuff is gone. I think she feels the same way about me. In a funny way, she and I have a friendship like the two of you have.”
I remembered that Regina had said something similar when we were slaving over the Blue and Gray Hunt Club newsletter but she also noted the differences. But then, no two friendships are identical. If they were, people would be interchangeable parts, with no individuality. Death would lose its sting. If someone is replaceable, you wouldn’t care if you lost her.
“I believe you as much as I can. And you’re right, I haven’t been married for twenty-two years. I don’t know what it feels like.”
“I want us to be friends. If we lose that, then I’ve lost a lot.” “We’ll always be friends. Until death us do part.” I smiled bigger than I should have.
“Maybe there is a Cupid with a bow and arrow,” he mused. “Last Christmas he let fly, and that was that.”
“People would be better off if we had a mating season like animals. At least our troubles would be confined.” “Was it trouble?”
“Yes and no. You know what I mean. If you were single I wouldn’t have a minute’s guilt.” I sighed. “One of the great things about living alone is that I have so much time to think. I often wonder what society would be like if we did have a mating season, or else, to take the opposite tack, if we dispensed with the sexual codes we have and let ’er rip.”
“Lot of fucking and killing.”
“We have enough already.”
“You’re the strangest soul, Nickie. One way or the other, you’ll move away from the emotional to ideas.”
“That’s me. I’m tired of hearing how repressed I am.”
“Did I say that?”
“No, you didn’t,” I grumbled, “but it’s been a hot topic of conversation of late and I don’t think I�
��m wildly repressed. We each have a distinctive way of approaching life and I’m a person who will try and use my head first. The heart follows the head for me, not the reverse. Dammit, that really is the way I am and I’m not going to change.”
This seemed to ring a bell or at least a distant wind chime.
“I’ll buy that.” Jackson leaned back in the chair. “You’re obviously dying to spring on me your latest theory which has to do with sex. Now, mind you, I’d rather be having sex with you than hearing about it but I’m in your company, so I’m happy.”
I wanted to hug him. Sometimes he could be so sweet he reminded me of Dad, but like every woman past the age of puberty I knew no adult male ever loved you the way your father did. After puberty it’s quid pro quo. I rubbed my hands together. “Humans can mate at any time. We’re always ready. Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
“Okay, one way that cultures past and present try to settle this confusion is to harness sex. If we made love to anyone who caught our fancy, whenever we wanted, nothing would get done.”
“I agree to that, too, and wouldn’t it be glorious.” A grin illuminated his handsome features.
“Don’t be a pig. I’m serious.” He laughed and I continued. “Marriage was a good way to limit our sexual expression. Even if a culture allows one man to have many wives, or one woman to have many husbands, there’s been a restriction imposed that limits sexual energy and breeding. That way we have energy left over for agriculture, the arts, building, war—whatever. We can create true communities because we’ve stabilized the sex drive. Different cultures stabilize that drive differently but they all stabilize it.”
“I’m still with you.”
“So, one of the first rules of any society has to be that married people are off limits to other people. It’s vital for a community to know and to advertise who is taken and who is available.”
“I don’t like this part of the theory quite as much.”
“I didn’t say I liked it either but that doesn’t make it any less true. The human race can’t afford to have everyone running after everyone else. Apart from the confusion that would create, it foments disease. Especially now. I mean, Jack, sex has never been private and it never will be. We perform the act in private but we must be public about the connection. Sex is how we pass down worldly goods. It’s how we create the primary unit of our society, the couple. Other societies have larger primary units but sex is still part of it.”
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