“But I’m ready to go.”
“Big Mama put this all together.”
I felt sick to my stomach, and I felt like I might cry. “Just say good-bye for me.” I went out to the truck.
22
AS SOON AS JACOB GOT in the truck, I said, “You never told me about Darlene.” Oscar pawed the cab window.
“Are there things in your life that you haven’t told me about?”
I wasn’t admitting anything. “Did you honestly tell her that you were going to return from New Jersey with a Yankee wife?”
“Yes,” he said, gunning the engine, the tires squealing as he took a right on Main Street. In the rearview mirror, I saw Oscar skid across the cab, landing on his side. “I did, and I was joking.” Jacob looked at me, jaw clenched. “I didn’t know that I would find you, but when I did find you, I knew you were the one, and I wasn’t letting you go. I told you: it was love at first sight.”
I sat with my arms folded at my chest.
“I love you. Not her!”
“I just feel really uncomfortable. I don’t know anyone here.”
“Well, that’s why we had the party.” He pushed the cigarette lighter in, and I pulled a cigarette from the pack between us. “And you made us leave early, so you really didn’t have a chance to meet too many people.”
“Your ex-girlfriend was there!”
“I don’t want you to be mad at me.”
I took a deep breath. “It’s just a lot.”
“I think everybody has an ex,” he said. “She wasn’t supposed to be there. She wasn’t invited.”
“I believe you.”
We drove five miles outside town, passing small tobacco and soybean farms. There was a field of grazing cattle and a stretch of dense pines. Then, we took a left on Priddy Lane. Jacob said, “This house belonged to Mrs. Priddy. I got it and the land for a steal. We’re going to be self-sufficient.” Priddy Lane was a dirt road that led to an old farmhouse. The yard was also dirt. The house appeared to be melting in the sun. White paint hung in sheets. It was a colonial-style home, two stories, a door in the center, windows on either side, and five windows on the second level. Jacob opened the truck door for me while Oscar jumped down from the bed. The porch wasn’t in terrible shape. At least, I didn’t fall through it. Jacob said, “My man Early Bird, who’s gonna help me with the salvage business, got us some furniture. I wasn’t gonna bring you home to an empty house.” The front door was freshly painted a bright red. Jacob said, “I’m carrying you across the threshold.”
“Again?”
“You bet.” He picked me up. “I used to come to this house when I was a kid. Mrs. Priddy would decorate for Halloween, and a bunch of us would come over and sit here in front of the fireplace. She’d give us candy apples and popcorn. She told ghost stories. She didn’t have any kids of her own.”
I got back on my feet. Jacob said, “It’s the same as I remember. This is where she’d tell the ghost stories.” I followed him into the kitchen. The floor was linoleum, a cream color, strips missing, where the room joined a walk-in pantry. There was a single lightbulb and a string to pull the light on. I pulled the string. Two honeybees hovered on the pantry shelf. Sheff is with the bees. That’s how it felt. That’s what I needed to believe.
There was an exterior door off the kitchen that led to a brick patio overgrown with Bermuda grass and weeds. Past the patio, ivy climbed a dead tree. Oscar bounded past me and lifted his leg on the ivy. Then, he ran back indoors. I pulled the door shut.
In the center of the house, the stairs led up to a main hallway with a bathroom and two small bedrooms to the right and a larger bedroom to the left. The floors were oak, in desperate need of refinishing. The doorknobs were crystal. Each door had a skeleton-key lock. I’d always liked skeleton-key locks. They were reminiscent of English novels. The master bedroom had been somewhat restored. The many layers of wallpaper had been stripped down, a fresh coat of white paint applied. There was a tall bed, mahogany, and a matching chest of drawers. I opened one of them, and it smelled of mothballs. Jacob said, “This was Mrs. Priddy’s furniture, but the mattress is new.” In the middle drawer, I discovered a lavender sachet and put it to my nose. It still smelled. I set it on top of the dresser and opened the one window in the room. Lead dust fell to the sill. The window’s glass was thick and wavy. A light breeze blew into the room before I let the window close. I turned to look at Jacob.
“What do you think?” he asked.
“It’s nice.” The bed was made. “It’s really different from the suburbs.”
“It’s country.”
“I think I like country.”
I followed him downstairs to the kitchen. There was a refrigerator with a metal handle. Jacob opened it and got a beer. “Want one?”
“You bet.”
“Want two?”
“Why not?” Then I laughed, handing him back the second beer. There was a small round kitchen table.
“I’m glad you like it here.”
“I really do.
“And we’ve got four acres.”
We sat at the table, drinking our beers. Jacob said, “Here’s to Mrs. Blount. I love the way that sounds.”
“And to Mr. Blount.” We clinked our cans. “Do you want me to start calling you JJ?”
“I’d prefer if you didn’t.”
“Same here.”
We went to bed early. I pulled the covers up to my neck. He kissed me and then rolled over. I stared at the ceiling until exhaustion took over and I slept.
There was a lot to do that first year and very little money. To get on our feet, Jacob went to work on Saturdays and Sundays selling used vinyl, furniture, and estate-sale jewelry at the flea market in Washington City. This was the beginning of the salvage business, the goal of self-sufficiency and purism. I went to work sanding the interior floors while Jacob and his pal Early Bird worked on the exterior, patching and sanding the old wood. Early Bird was a nice fellow. He had maybe eight teeth and bad acne scars, and he spoke in a thick country accent, like nothing I’d ever heard. But he was kind. He always complimented me, even when I was wearing nothing more than a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. He said that Jacob was lucky to have found me.
Summers in Greeley were scorchers. We didn’t have an air conditioner, so I spent a lot of time in tank tops and shorts standing in front of the fan, taking cold showers, and drinking ice water. I’d never been so uncomfortably hot. The sun set at nine o’clock and the lightning bugs performed a flickering dance across the grass. Shortly after we’d moved in, I found Mrs. Priddy’s turntable and some old records—Bessie Smith, Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, and Ella Fitzgerald. Every morning the humidity rose up from the ivy, clover, and dirt with the sun. I understood the meaning of dog days. I wore a cap pulled low down to keep the sun off my face. I sprayed Oscar and myself with the hose between digging the weeds out of the brick patio. A hundred feet behind the house, there was a shed filled with rakes, a hoe, a shovel, flowerpots, and a trowel, all left behind after Mrs. Priddy died. I was cleaning it up, knocking down cobwebs, wiping off shelves. I found gardening gloves and imagined the woman who’d worn them, the woman Jacob had spoken of, someone who’d loved children but who’d lived alone, a widow, no babies. Oscar joined me in the shed, the bees trailing us. Oscar ate one and yelped when it stung his tongue. I was worried that he might have a bad reaction, but it was only a minor discomfort as it didn’t deter his attempts to eat more. If I shut the shed door, the bees flew into it. I’d hear them butt against the wood, so when I was inside, I left the door open. They gathered over the tool bench and along the ceiling. They flew from one corner to the next, and I would often watch them, thinking about Sheff. Dr. Belmont had liked to keep all the doors shut. The bees liked them open.
Big Mama came for dinner every Sunday. She was on disability due to a bad hip, but for twenty years, she’d worked the cash register at the Greeley Pharmacy. When we all got together, she told the best stories about pharma
cy drug thefts and attempted murder by poison. If Poppy happened to come with her, we heard a mound of gossip. She told us who was cheating, who had an illegitimate child, who was getting brown-papered copies of Playboy magazine delivered to their post office box. I thought she had to be illegally opening people’s mail. On Sundays, we ate well: baked chicken, roast turkey, sometimes steak. Jacob cooked.
During the week, we ate peanut butter sandwiches, canned chili, and SpaghettiOs. Jacob joked that he should’ve made sure I knew how to cook before he married me. I thought I was doing just fine. I could steam vegetables in the colander, scramble eggs, make a box of macaroni and cheese, and boil spaghetti. Good enough.
In August, we got a telephone. I was elated. I’d been writing letters back and forth with my parents and Gwen. I could finally talk to them. It’d been nearly two months since I’d seen or spoken to anyone from Maryville. Then Jacob said, “No long-distance phone calls. We can’t afford it.”
“What about on Sundays? The rate is lower on Sundays.”
“Once a month on Sundays.”
I decided that that first Sunday in August would be my first once-a-month. I called my parents at two o’clock when I knew they’d be home from Mass. The first thing I said was, “I have a telephone!”
My father said, “It’s good to hear your voice. How’s married life?”
Jacob was at the flea market with Early Bird. “Good. Different.”
“We miss you,” he said. “We worry about you.”
“Jacob’s mother has been amazing, and his cousin Poppy is quite the character.”
He said, “I’m glad to hear it. Have you found a job?” He knew how much I’d enjoyed my job at Bink’s.
“I’m working at home,” I said. “Remember the purist thing, Dad. We’re planning to do everything ourselves. Eventually, we’re going to grow our own food and start a salvage business. Jacob says that it’s wasteful to want everything brand-new. The best appliances were made ten or twenty years ago.”
My dad said, “Um, okay.” He obviously didn’t agree. “Your mother’s about to rip the phone out of my hand. Let me pass you over to her.”
“Hi, sweetheart. It’s been so good to get your letters. We miss you terribly.”
“I miss you too.”
“Are you coming home for Christmas?”
Jacob had already said that we couldn’t afford such extravagances, adding, “We have our own home. Why am I going to sleep under another man’s roof?”
“No. Not this year.”
“We can pay for your gas.”
“Jacob wants to have our first Christmas in our own home.”
“What do you want?”
“Mother … He’s my husband.”
“I have some news.”
“What is it?” I was glad she’d changed the subject.
“I’ve transferred to a four-year college.”
“That’s wonderful.”
“Right now, I’m taking a class in western literature and another called Women’s Studies. It’s fascinating.”
I wished that I could reach out and hold her, take her hand in mine. We’d come full circle, us girls, mother and daughter. We’d both mourned. We’d both survived.
She said, “If you ever want to talk, you call collect. Do you understand me?”
“I do, Mother.”
“And we’ll mail your Christmas presents. We love you so much.”
When I hung up, I stared at the phone, sadder than before I’d called. Hearing their voices had only made me miss them more.
23
IN NOVEMBER, THE BEES DISAPPEARED. Jacob worked with Early Bird every day except Mondays. The weekends were their busiest days because the flea markets were open Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. Jacob started traveling to estate sales, buying furniture and appliances he thought he could fix up and sell for a profit.
Gwen and my parents phoned at least every other day. Jacob didn’t mind—so long as we weren’t paying for it.
The first week in December, Betty Jenkins telephoned the house. “Hi,” she said, “this is Betty. We met at your fire station wedding party.”
“How could I forget that extravaganza?”
“Seriously. I bet you really loved the ex-girlfriend part.”
“I never saw that coming. Who does that?” I laughed.
Betty said, “Darlene Hemmy, that’s who. Listen, I was wondering if you were up for some company? I need to run a few errands, and I thought I’d swing by, visit, check out your house. Rumor has it that you’ve made a lot of repairs.”
I hadn’t seen her in nearly five months. “Sure. That would be nice.” I was allowed to have friends. Just because I’d been attracted to her at the fire station all those months ago didn’t mean that I’d feel anything now. Beside I’d never act on such feelings.
“Terrific. I’ll see you in about an hour.”
I jumped in the shower. I was outside throwing a tennis ball to Oscar when she pulled up in a Volkswagen convertible, the top down. Her hair was tied back in a blue ribbon.
She got out of the car. “I love this dog.” Oscar ran to her, dropping his ball at her feet. She threw it for him. “I used to play sports. Now I bake, and it shows.” She bent over and pulled a red tin, a shiny silver bag, and a bottle of wine from her back seat. “I brought a very belated housewarming present.”
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“Thanks for letting me come over. I didn’t know how long the honeymoon stage lasted, but I talked to Big Mama, and she said that you’d appreciate some company.”
“She was right. Come on in.”
Betty said, “I haven’t been in this house since I was a little girl.”
“At Halloween?”
“Exactly.”
“Jacob has the same memories.” Then, I said, “I love your outfit.” She wore a blue floral shirt with flowy sleeves and faded bell-bottoms.
“Any excuse to dress up, and I’m all over it. I spend most days in an apron, flour in my hair and everywhere else. Oh, here.” She handed me the red tin, the wine, and the little bag. “Do you like coconut and walnuts?”
“I sure do.”
Betty followed me to the kitchen. I peeked inside the tin. “Oh, have one,” she said. “They’re chocolate chip, coconut, and walnut, because you can never have too much goodness in one cookie.”
I bit into one. “So good! Big Mama brings your desserts sometimes when she comes to Sunday dinner.”
Betty laughed. “I love that woman. She keeps me in business.”
I set the cookies and wine on the counter.
“Open the present. It’s just a little something.”
I pulled out the tissue paper. Then, the gift.
“They’re tea towels,” she said. “I got them at the Biltmore Estate in Asheville. I thought they were so cute.”
“I love them.” I had some raggedy secondhand dish towels from the thrift store. I pulled them from the oven railing, replacing them with Betty’s.
“I’m glad. Now, let’s have a glass of wine and celebrate your house and your marriage and no ex-girlfriends lurking about.”
“I’ll drink to that.” I looked for a corkscrew. I opened one drawer. Then another. Then, a third. “All we drink is beer.”
She pulled one from her purse, uncorking the bottle. “I own a restaurant.” I poured us each a glass. Then, I gave her a tour. She said, “You should come shopping with me.”
“I don’t really shop.”
“That’s why Jacob married you.” Betty followed me to our living room. “But seriously, you’ll have to day-trip to Raleigh with me. I am the queen of bargain shopping, and I’m a bit of a clothes whore, but around here, nobody dresses up. So I dress up and go shopping.”
“Maybe.”
“It’s nearly Christmas. You celebrate Christmas, right? So you’ll want to buy a present or two.”
Betty sat on the sofa. It was a hideous upholstered green-and-orange basket-weave pri
nt that Jacob had found. I sat Indian-style on our rug. I said, “It’s snowing at my parents’ house. Snow makes me think of Christmas, not this sixty-plus-degree weather.”
“So you miss it?” she asked.
“More than I thought I would.”
“Sometimes we get ice in Greeley, but never snow. My uncle Aubrey lives in Colorado, and before my mom got sick, we went to see him. There was so much snow there, and mountains. It was beautiful, and I remember feeling like I’d just stepped through the wardrobe into Narnia.”
“I love those books.”
Betty said, “I was an English major in college.”
“Really? I love to read.”
“I graduated from UNC–Chapel Hill in 1966. I was going to live in Durham, but then my mama got sick. I came home and ended up opening a bakery. It grew into a restaurant, just breakfast and lunch, but it’s good. One day, I’d like to write a cookbook.”
“That’s really impressive.”
“Not so much, not really. Greeley is most certainly not where I thought I’d be at twenty-seven years old. I was getting out of Greeley and never looking back.”
I got up and put on my new album, Tapestry by Carole King, a gift from Gwen. Betty said, “How’s married life?”
“Really good. Working hard.”
“The house looks good. Big Mama said that y’all painted the exterior yourself.”
“Mostly Jacob and Early Bird. I did the floors.”
“Well, it looks great. Mrs. Priddy would be proud. It’s awful to see a home fall into ruin.”
Betty knew the words to every Carole King song. You just call out my name, and you know wherever I am, I’ll come running to see you again. Betty’s full lips were stained burgundy. “I hope you haven’t heard any more from Darlene.”
“No. Thank God.”
“She and Jacob were that on-again, off-again couple. They fought constantly. After high school, they moved in together. One of them was always pissing the other one off, and everybody who knew them took sides. It was like the Hatfields and the McCoys.”
“Whose side did you pick?”
“I went to college. I got the hell out of here. When I came back, I couldn’t believe that the same drama I remembered from high school was still going on. It’s kind of depressing.”
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