“Nina. You did it again.”
She shook her head.
“I knew these two couldn’t kill anybody. They’re Bay St. Lucyans. We don’t do things that way. And when you think about it, we’re not really Hamlet kind of people, anyway.”
Jackson, smiling, asked:
“What kind of people are we?”
Nina rose.
“Just walk down the street, Jackson. You can’t help hearing it. Summer mornings in front of The Stink Shak, or every afternoon when the tinkly little bell rings at Margot’s shop. Or when the high school band has a concert in city park or the ice cream truck passes in front of the library. Or the ocean just makes the noise it always makes, and the sea breeze blows through the wind chimes. No, Jackson, to quote T. S. Eliot, ‘We are not Prince Hamlet, nor were we meant to be’.”
She took a step toward the door.
“Our little hills are alive with the Sound of Music. Now—I’ve had a very full day for an old retired school teacher…I’m going home.”
And she did so.
CHAPTER 23: EPILOGUE
The real summer highlight in the village of Bay St. Lucy, Mississippi, occurred seven days before the first day of autumn, on September fifteenth, Saturday morning, at 10 a.m.
It occurred when John Giusti married Helen Reddington in the Second Methodist Church, with Nina giving Helen away, Jackson serving as John’s best man, and Hope’s face serving as an electric light bulb radiating white luminosity from the front pew.
The couple were, immediately after the ceremony, to be whisked away for a week’s exotic honeymoon in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, where they would do heaven only knew what.
But now there were other matters to attend to.
Nina, standing some ten feet behind Helen, could only behold children from the congregation picking at the immense bridal train, grabbing for this imaginary leaf or that minute bit of dust that might somehow dim the impossible radiance of the gown, which could only be compared to The Continent of Antarctica but starched.
Nina picked her way around it, slowly, carefully, don’t step in a crevasse, watch for polar bears…
Finally she reached the gown’s headquarters, which was Helen herself.
“Ready?” she asked.
Helen turned to look at her.
This movement, small though it was, set off several minor tremors in the gown, causing the children to panic and start grabbing for a new assortment of things drifting down through the atmosphere and landing on the pure and driven snow that trailed The Bride.
“I think so.”
“This is your big number.”
“I know.”
“Nervous?”
“As a cat.”
“Well, you don’t know much about theater.”
“You know, you’re right, Nina. I have a feeling this is my premiere.”
“You’ll be fine. Just hope that John doesn’t drop the ring.”
“He won’t. He’s amazing. He’s the real performer in the family now.”
“All right, but remember…”
“Be quiet, you two!” hissed someone who’d also crowded into the church’s vestibule. “I think the organ is beginning to play!”
“All right, then,” said Helen. “Five, four, three two one…”
NOW!
And the doors of the church itself blew open, revealing nothing stretching between the bridal party and the stage itself but pew after pew after pew, all filled with smiling people. They stood as one now and began applauding while the organ roared Mendelsohn’s Wedding March.
Nina stood on tiptoe, so that she could see past the children carrying the train, and past Helen, walking slowly, a halo of radiance emitting from the smile that she now must be training on the stage itself.
Where stood John Giusti, trusty John Giusti, his tuxedo as elegant as the captain’s outfit he had worn in The Sound of Music, his cuff links gold-glowing in what seemed celestial light flooding down from the choir loft.
And so she arrived onstage, her grandmother leaping from the front pew to stand beside her.
And so he said, ‘I do,’ and so she said ‘I do,’ and so the community looked on and approved.
And Nina found herself thinking that things—all things connected with this couple—and with the Bay St. Lucy that had raised them—were going to be all right.
And in thinking all of these things…she was exactly right.
THE END
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Pam Britton (T’Gracie) Reese is an Assistant Professor in the Communication Science and Disorders Department at Indiana/Purdue University at Fort Wayne. Previously, she worked as a speech pathologist in schools in private practice. She was also a supervisor in communication disorders at Ohio University. She likes nothing better, professionally, than helping small, silent two year old boys start talking. She has also published books about autism with LinguiSystems for the last 15 years. The Circle of Autism was previously published on-line at ken*again e-magazine
Joe Reese is a novelist, playwright, storyteller, and college teacher. He has published four novels, several plays, and a number of stories and articles. When he is not teaching (English and German), he enjoys visiting elementary schools, where he tells stories from his Katie Dee novels and talks to students about writing. He and his wife Pam have three children: Kate, Matthew, and Sam.
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Set Change: A Nina Bannister Mystery (The Nina Bannister Mysteries) Page 24