by Jan Karon
She was back in fifteen minutes. ‘Hold out your hands,’ she said to Harley.
Harley held out his hands.
She presented him with something wrapped in paper towel, then kissed him on the forehead and turned and went along the hall.
Harley’s choppers.
Joy, he thought, noting the look of reprieve on Harley’s face, was another sight to see.
‘A wet knot stays tied longer’n a dry knot,’ said Willie. He and Harley were having supper at Willie’s house, out of the fray. ‘My mother always said that. She was married in a pourin’ rain that turned to hail by th’ time they got th’ horses home.’
‘How long did it last?’
‘Sixty years,’ said Willie.
‘Let’s see. They’s a fiddle, a bass, a guitar, a banjer, an’ what else?’ said Harley.
‘Mandolin,’ said Willie. ‘An’ a harmonica.’
‘With all that t’ play, they’ll be some busy biscuits.’
There was a long silence.
‘You gon’ dance?’ said Willie.
‘I don’t dance,’ said Harley. ‘Two left feet.’
‘What if your girlfriend wants to dance?’
‘Don’t call her my girlfriend. Nossir, Miss Pringle is not a girlfriend and she don’t look t’ me like th’ dancin’ kind.’
‘What are you wearin’?’ said Willie.
‘It’s already laid out. Khakis, m’ check shirt, lace-ups, m’ good belt. How ’bout you?’
‘Same, except I’m goin’ with my plaid shirt. I’ve not wore my church shoes in a good while, they raise a blister. I’ll have to go with my town shoes.’
‘Are you gon’ dance?’
‘Nossir,’ said Willie. ‘I don’t dance in front of people.’
‘You dance by yourself?’
The two men laughed.
‘You cackle like a layin’ hen,’ said Willie.
They were walking along the hay road at sunset, their boots kicking up red dust. Bowser and Bo followed—aimless, sniffing the weeds.
‘All our dogs are old,’ said Lace. ‘All that wisdom and all those territorial rights—wouldn’t that be hard for a puppy?’
‘Hard for a little while, maybe. Then good.’
She was glad the Golden pup at the co-op had found a home. ‘We need a puppy; I would love to have a puppy. But it’s the wrong time.’
‘Maybe it’s the perfect time.’
She laughed. ‘Are you crazy?’
He wouldn’t want to answer that in the affirmative, but he’d always been a little crazy, and why stop now when he had just adopted the pup at the co-op? ‘Bein’ our animal doc,’ Buster told him, ‘you get first dibs.’
He took his cell phone from his jeans pocket. ‘Dooley Kavanagh. Good evenin’.’
A single firefly in the tall grass; the last embers of the sunset. She watched his expression in the fading light.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Of course. We’ll be here for sure. We’re ready. Great. Thanks.’
She heard it in his voice; this was what they had prayed for, worked for, waited for. Her heart was wild.
He spoke again briefly, put the phone in his pocket. ‘It’s happening,’ he said.
‘When?’
‘Saturday.’
They stood in the narrow road, looking at each other, stunned.
‘God help us,’ she whispered.
‘And he will,’ said Dooley.
He drove into Mitford in Dooley’s truck around nine a.m., through fog that flirted among the cedars and blew across the road in wisps.
‘It’s not fog, it’s clouds,’ one of his former parishioners liked to say, and that was of course true, for fog was merely a cloud that wasn’t too smitten with itself to visit terra firma.
Harley would be coming to town in the afternoon, in his own truck. He hated the burning of extra gas, not to mention the spew of carbon monoxide into innocent mountain air. But it had to be done. Harley was toting twelve ten-gallon recycled paint buckets of well water, which he’d fill with armloads of Seven Sisters roses. The roses would overnight in the barn, and tomorrow morning would festoon a great deal of Meadowgate.
He let himself in their side door on Wisteria Lane and heard the oddly consoling drone of Puny’s vacuum cleaner above.
It had been a while since they lost Barnabas, but he never entered the house without being startled by his absence. ‘Good boy,’ he whispered.
And good smells. That would be Puny’s lamb stew with plenty of garlic, and two peach pies for Monday’s lunch with Henry and Walter and Katherine. Too bad that Puny and her brood couldn’t attend the wedding; she had helped raise Dooley, after all. But there was an annual Cunningham family reunion, with attendants numbering a couple hundred.
He was grateful for the quietude of the study, the way the slipcover on the sofa seemed at home with itself, and noticed for the first time that his wing chair could use new upholstery. He would be happy to get back here tomorrow night with a brother and a first cousin and his cousin’s wife. Family! All under one roof. While most people understandably took family for granted, he took it for grace.
And grandchildren one day, he thought, opening the spice drawer. But wait a minute. That wouldn’t be happening. In view of the recent news, it was strange that his dogged yearning for grans had come circling back.
He crossed himself, gave thanks, and burgled their allspice, nutmeg, and cloves for his bakefest in the country. He also sought out a beef rub for the two tenderloins he had offered to roast. Why did he volunteer for doing this stuff? Truth be told, he was feeling a tad pressured.
‘I guess you know,’ said Lew Boyd when he went inside to pay his gas tab.
‘Know what?’
‘Gon’ get a blow tonight.’
‘Say that again?’
‘Wind gusts up to sixty miles an hour. A blow. Tonight.’
Dear God. If they got such a thing, it would be a blow, all right.
‘It’s been on the news all mornin’.’
‘We don’t talk about weather in our house,’ he said. ‘Against the law.’
And there went his stomach roiling. The tent upside down in somebody’s pasture, deviled eggs hither and yon. He would not mention this weather report to anybody at Meadowgate; he wouldn’t even listen to the weather station on the drive home. No way did he want to know the particulars.
‘Lord,’ he said aloud as he switched on the ignition, ‘may it please you to give us a wonderful day with good weather. That said, Lord—and I mean this sincerely—your will be done.’
There. He had dotted every i and crossed every t.
The orange marmalade cake sat on her kitchen counter in an open box.
Esther pointed to the contents with obvious satisfaction. ‘Look in,’ she said.
He looked in.
‘That,’ she said, ‘is th’ real deal. That is an Esther Bolick OMC. I’ve printed up a sign. It says Esther Bolick’s Original OMC.’ She handed over the sign, hand-lettered with a Sharpie on an 8x10 manila envelope.
‘Says it all!’
‘Then again, it doesn’t say I’m th’ one who actually made it.’ She snatched the sign from his hand. ‘Maybe it should say The Famous Original OMC Made by Esther Bolick HERSELF. I do not want any confusion.’
‘No, no, we certainly don’t need any confusion.’ As covertly as possible, he glanced at his watch. A lot of ground to cover. Plus he’d be working a five a.m. shift to get the hams done and the kitchen cleared for Lily and her crowd.
‘Every Tom, Dick, and Harry in Mitford makes this cake,’ she said. ‘So th’ sign should definitely be more specific about th’ creator. What do you think?’
‘Um,’ he said.
‘If Winnie wants to print up her own sign, that’s fine by me. You need to mention that when
you pick up from her place.’ She closed the box, taped the lid shut. ‘This is my weddin’ gift to Dooley. He’s a good boy. Not that I would be expected to give a gift.’
‘Right. Certainly not. Very generous, Esther, but . . .’
‘Or why don’t you just stand by th’ cake table and tell everybody which is mine? You have more clout than a sign, people will believe you.’ She stepped on the lever of her trash can and chucked the manila envelope.
‘No, no. It would be redundant for me to stand by your cake and announce the name of its creator. The truth is, your cake will speak for itself.’
‘Go on!’ she said, shirking flattery. ‘That’s what Gene used to say.’ Her eyes misted. It had been a brain tumor and a long goodbye.
He stooped a bit, leaned forward, and for emphasis removed his glasses. ‘Your cake, Esther Bolick, will be recognized at once for its singular perfection, its precise placement of each and every orange slice, and when tasted, well—there will be no doubt whatsoever whose cake it is.’
And there was her sudden welcome smile.
‘So thank you sincerely for your generous gift, but I already made out the check.’ He pulled it from his shirt pocket, single folded.
‘Tear it up!’ she said, meaning it.
He carried the box to the truck and set it on the floor of the passenger side as carefully as if it were a grenade.
‘Father!’ Esther called from the porch.
‘Yes, ma’am!’
‘Tell ’em to slice it event-style!’
Event-style. He was afraid to ask. ‘Will do!’
‘An’ run hot water on th’ knife blade before you make each cut!’
He nodded, threw up his hand.
‘If there’s a crumb left on th’ platter, I don’t want to hear about it!’ she hollered, grim as a troll.
‘Listen to me, Esther! There will be fifty people at this wedding. There will be no crumbs!’
‘And you leave it alone, you hear? No more comas out of you, Father!’
‘Killer cake!’ he shouted, and up he went into the refuge of the driver’s seat and closed the door.
Driving away, he saw Esther in the side-view mirror, looking bereft. Though she didn’t tell her age, she was up there—eightysomething, for sure—and definitely shriveled since he saw her at Christmas. In truth, he had done some shriveling of his own—he could look practically eye to eye with his wife, who, he was amused to learn, refused to shrivel. ‘Wrinkle, maybe,’ she said. ‘But no shriveling.’
‘The same forces that cause wrinkling cause shriveling,’ he said, as if he knew.
She had given him a look. ‘End of discussion.’
He peered again in the side-view mirror. Absolutely not. He couldn’t do what he was suddenly inspired to do, he didn’t have time. Time was of the essence. No!
He braked and shut off the engine and climbed out and sprinted up the driveway to the porch.
‘Here’s a hug,’ he said.
‘Why do I need a hug?’
‘Why does anybody need a hug?’
And there was the smile again.
He drove to the Harpers’, got no answer to his knock at the door, opened it and yelled, ‘Anybody home?’
Hoppy came up the hall—wiry gray hair, wearing a pair of old green scrubs, looking his usual handsome and disheveled self.
‘Olivia’s out getting her mother-of-the-bride dress hemmed. You’ve done all the work while I’ve been totally immersed in flying medical personnel into three countries. I feel like a heel.’
They had a good embrace, complete with backslapping.
‘Don’t feel that way. I can’t fly medical personnel anywhere, but I can weed-eat the north strip so you can get the better job done.’
‘Thanks. Thanks. I owe you, Father. How’s it going out there?’
‘Consider it nailed,’ he said, which was stretching the truth.
‘Criminal,’ Cynthia called his inability to kick back and let circumstances take their course. In his book, circumstances without close supervision had a tendency to wind up in the ditch. Actually, he’d be glad to come home to Mitford and let the young people get on with their lives.
‘So fill me in,’ said Hoppy. ‘Let’s go to the kitchen.’
‘The barn is settled, the cattle are settled, the dress is settled. Now we’re into what song they want for the first dance.’
Hoppy pulled out a couple of chairs at the kitchen table. ‘Ours was “Come Rain or Come Shine.” Have a seat. Remember that?’
He was pretty astonished that his former physician and parishioner literally burst into song.
‘I’m gonna love you like nobody’s loved you
Come rain or come shine . . .’
Hoppy laughed, mildly embarrassed. ‘So do I qualify for the church choir?’
‘You bet. I’m not sure I remember the song, but I’ll never forget Miss Sadie’s ballroom the night of your reception. A whole vast room done over just for you and Olivia. Musicians in formal attire. Angels painted on the ceiling. Food from the heavens. We’d never seen anything like it and never will again.’
He and Cynthia hadn’t had a first dance. The reception had been held in the parish hall and yours truly had baked the ham and toasts had been delivered via a handheld mike that honked—and all the parish agog at their bachelor priest tying the knot with a good-looking woman.
Hoppy sang another line or two, as if to himself.
He’d never seen his old friend like this. Clearly, charitable work paid off in a marvelously unforeseen way.
Just as schoolteachers often had a pet—he had actually been one in seventh grade—he had Winnie Kendall.
When he walked into Sweet Stuff, there were the freckles, the amiable face anyone would be proud to wear, and the box open for inspection.
He peered in. ‘Perfection, Winnie, perfection! I’d take a picture with my phone if I knew how.’
‘Th’ only thing I use my cell for is takin’ orders.’
He started to peel off the bills.
‘Put that back,’ she said. ‘This is my weddin’ present.’
‘You don’t need to give a present.’
‘You helped save my business, remember?’
‘Please.’ He proffered the money.
‘I’m not takin’ it.’
‘Okay, be stubborn, and thanks a million. Lace and Dooley will appreciate it greatly, I assure you. This is a wedding on a shoestring.’
‘There is no such thing as a weddin’ on a shoestring, Father. Wait’ll you total up th’ damages.’ There was a discreet pause. ‘Have you seen Esther’s little number yet?’
‘Um.’
Winnie laughed. ‘She’s determined to outlive me and get her title back.’
The battle of the OMCs was up there with the Hatfields and the McCoys. Without shotguns, of course.
His two hams had made their way from the valley to the Local and he was excited about it.
Avis Packard was Mitford’s grocer to three contiguous counties, and the poet of comestibles. ‘Free-range. Acorn fed. Moist and tender,’ said Avis. ‘In a nutshell . . . succulent!’
Bone-in, twenty-four pounds total. He hoisted the sack, grinning.
If there was a morsel left on the platters, he didn’t want to hear about it.
He dumped his provender into the crew cab; he was heading home fully loaded.
‘This simple little country weddin’ has half killed several people,’ Lily said yesterday.
‘Amen,’ he replied, not feeling especially liturgical.
He texted Mitford’s local Realtor, Mule Skinner, and local newspaper editor, J. C. Hogan, barreled to the dry cleaner recently opened on the highway, and hit the door of Wanda’s Feel Good Café at eleven-thirty on the nose.
‘Two cakes
in the car, temperature seventy-four and rising, no time to fool around,’ he said to Wanda. ‘Water, no ice. Turkey on whole wheat with tomato, no mayo.’
‘You’re no fun,’ said Wanda.
‘That’s what they all say.’ He would have his fun tomorrow at the potluck.
He skidded into his chair at the table.
‘You heard th’ weather news?’ said J.C.
‘Tent up, tables and rentals in the barn, porch covered, bourbon buried. All we can do. C’est la vie.’
J.C. wiped his face with a paper napkin. ‘Can’t you move it all inside? I mean, what can you do?’
‘Pray, that’s what we can do, have done, are doing, and will do. Out of our hands.’
‘What was that about buryin’ bourbon?’ said Mule.
‘A shameless superstition, otherwise known as a southern tradition, promoted by our farm help.’
‘Why?’
He laughed. ‘Don’t ask.’
Wanda had arrived with the water pitcher. ‘You gon’ let it stay buried or you gon’ dig it up?’
‘Not my department.’
‘I’d come help you dig it up, but I’m Baptist,’ said Mule.
Wanda gave Mule a look. ‘My sympathies.’
‘What’s new?’ Omer Cunningham pulled out a chair.
‘Big wedding out at Meadowgate. We’re not invited,’ said J.C.
‘Family and friends,’ he said. ‘Small.’
Omer slapped him on the back. ‘We’ve been hearin’ about that. Congratulations, Father.’ And there went Omer’s smile, parading teeth as big as dimes. Omer was a decorated ’Nam vet and aviator who’d had a long span of bachelorhood but was now discreetly bronzed and happily married to Shirlene, who introduced spray tan to Mitford a few years back. This cosmetic amenity had never caught on locally, but the tourists were fond of it. ‘It’s paying for itself,’ Shirlene had reported in a Muse interview in the business section, a single sheet printed both sides, two-color.
When was he going to talk about his brother coming? How was he going to introduce that news to people who had known him for years but had never heard of a brother?