"Is this okay?" I asked, when he didn"t say anything."It"s fine," he said with some surprise, as if he hadn"t realized I was waiting for his verdict.
"This carpet is mildewed, I think the carpet pad is, too," I said, wrinkling my nose. I hadn"t noticed this the other time I"d looked at the apartment. "I"ll replace it. Is there any color you particularly like? Anything that might match your furniture . . . ?"
"Right now, we don"t have any," he said calmly.
He seemed amused.
All right! What was so d.a.m.n funny about not having furniture, about my wanting to know if their furniture was any color I should be mindful of when I ordered carpet! Didn"t most people in their forties have furniture? It wasn"t as if I"d asked about his racial origin or asked him to describe a shrimp fork. I could feel myself turning red.
"Angel and I haven"t been in one place long enough to acc.u.mulate much," he said, and I nodded curtly.
"Then I"ll rent it furnished," I said, and turned and walked out.
I stomped down the stairs breathing heavily.
I spied John Henry"s wife"s best friend"s son going into my house with a cigarette in his mouth.
"Excuse me!" I called.
He stopped and turned.
This kid had an att.i.tude, no doubt about it. He looked at me as if I"d crawled out from under a rock to question his G.o.d-given right to smoke in my house."Please put out the cigarette before you go in," I said as evenly as I could manage, coming to a stop in the front yard a few feet away from the boy as he stood on my front steps.
He rolled his eyes and sneered. It was one of those teenage grimaces that make you amazed that so many of them survive to adulthood. Of course teenagers had acted like this in the library, and I had handled it then, but a few months away had resensitized me.
Already angry, I was now inwardly berserk. What this translated to on the outside was that I had my hands clenched in fists by my side, my jaw felt soldered together, and all I needed to complete my Shirley Temple imitation was to stick my lip out.
The boy dropped the cigarette on my wooden porch and ground it out with his foot. He took another step inside.
"Pick it up," suggested a quiet voice from behind me.
"Huh?" The boy"s mouth was open in amazement at this novel idea."Pick it up and put it in your pocket," the quiet voice said, as if it were implanting a posthypnotic suggestion.
With a fearful stare over my shoulder, the boy reached down, picked up his cigarette b.u.t.t, dropped it in his pocket, and scuttled into the house."Now," I said, pivoting on my heel, "I could have handled that by myself."
"I made you mad in the first place," Shelby said.I tried to think that out, but couldn"t while he was standing there looking at me.
"We should start again," he said.
"Yes."
"Hi, I"m Shelby Youngblood, a friend of Martin"s."
"Hi. I"m Roe Teagarden, Martin"s fiancee."
We didn"t shake hands again, but regarded each other warily.
"I hope you don"t mind Martin suggesting we live here," Shelby said.
That wasn"t easy for him. He wasn"t used to being beholden to anyone.I blew out a long breath silently, gradually cooling down. I decided on simple positive sentences. "I am very glad for you to be in the apartment. I know that you plan to help out while the renovation is going on. I"m anxious to get it done as soon as possible. We"ll get married in three weeks, and be back from our honeymoon two weeks after that, so I hope to have most of it done by then." "If I start work at Pan-Am Agra before then, Angel will be more than able to supervise whatever work is left to be done," Shelby said. "And by the way, she likes light orange-I think she calls it peach-and green." I could feel the tension ease out of my face.
"Will you go back to-Florida, right?-to get her, or..." "Yeah. I"ll fly back tomorrow, and we"ll wrap things up there and start driving up here in maybe three or four days."
"Okay. That"ll work out great." By the time the Young-bloods were in place, I should be more and more wrapped up in wedding plans, and it really would be a help to have them actually on the spot.
For the first time I saw how Shelby Youngblood had gotten out to the house. He was driving Martin"s car.
"He really does trust you," I said.
"Yeah."
We gave each other another long look. "Catch you later," Shelby said casually, and strode off, starting up Martin"s car and driving off in it.It felt very strange to see someone else in Martin"s car.
I ran into town to tell the carpet and paint people they had a new job, and one that took priority. By great good fortune, they had a peach-colored carpet in stock. Since the white walls in the apartment were still in very good shape, I asked the painter to do the baseboards and door and window frames in green. I was lucky enough to find white curtains with a little peach-colored figure at WalMart (I was in too much of a hurry to have some made), and as for furniture ... gee, this was getting expensive. I looked in the for-sale ads of the Lawrenceton Sentinel and called some of the numbers listed. By late afternoon, I"d found a very nice used bedroom suite and a couch and two armchairs in a neutral beige, and had run back to WalMart and bought queen-size sheets and a bedspread (green). The living-room set was in good shape but needed cleaning. I made a note to buy a spray cleaner, and then rushed back to the townhouse to get ready for the wedding shower.
As I sank into the warm water of the bathtub, I realized that I hadn"t eaten lunch and didn"t have time to eat supper. I was astonished. Meals were not something I skipped without noticing. Well, I certainly hadn"t missed the calories, but I wouldn"t be able to keep up this pace unless I took better care of myself. I consciously relaxed everything from my toes on up, practicing slow regular breathing. I was going to enjoy tonight. I"d waited all these years for a bridal shower in my honor; by golly, this was my night.Luckily, I"d decided in advance what to wear. I pulled the purple with white polka dots from the closet, put in the amethyst earrings Martin had bought me, slid my feet into one of my few pairs of high heels. After surveying my reflection, I added a small gold bracelet. I brushed my hair carefully and then put on a braided headband to keep the ma.s.s out of my face (and my drink, and my food).
Food. I hoped Eileen and Sally had a tableful. Maybe those sausage and biscuit b.a.l.l.s?
My mouth watered while I swapped purses, and when my mother rang the doorbell, I was feeling ravenous.
My mother, Aida Brattle Teagarden Queensland, looked aristocratic and slim and cool as ever in a gorgeous royal blue suit. She is a woman dauntingly difficult to criticize. Her clothes and behavior are always appropriate for the occasion.She always thinks before she speaks. Her extensive and successful business dealings are always ethically aboveboard, and her employees have excellent health benefits and a profit-sharing program.
But she is definitely not a woman you would run up and hug without a fair warning and a good reason, and she is not sentimental, and she never forgets anyone who does not deal fairly with her.
Mother gave me a careful, cheerful kiss on the cheek. She was finally marrying me off, enjoying all the mother-of-the-bride things that she"d been denied. And she knew I was happy. And she approved of Martin, though I sensed reservations.Martin was closer to her age than to mine, and that worried her a bit. (She had asked me if I"d seen his company"s insurance policy, for example.) And, being my mother and extremely property oriented, she wanted to know how much money Martin had in the bank, what his salary was, how much of that he saved, and what his pension program was. Since it was impossible for her to ask Martin these things point-blank, it had been amusing to hear her try to maneuver the conversation delicately around to what she wanted to know.
"I"m willing to give her a full, typed financial statement," Martin had told me after we"d eaten supper with Mother and John one night."That would be too direct," I told him. "I don"t know why she"s in such a lather, anyway." (Though actually, my mother in a lather was pretty unimaginable.) "I have plenty of money of my own, safely invested, well protected."
"She"s just watching out for you," Martin said fondly.I had dark thoughts about why everyone seemed to feel I needed "watching out for," but considering my mother had a right to if anyone did, I kept quiet.Now as Mother swept me into her superior car (she"d picked me up because she considered my old Chevette to be too plebeian for The Bride) she checked me over as though I were going on my first date, gave a quick little nod of approval, and asked me if I"d heard from my father lately."Not since he called me after he talked to Betty Jo about coming," I answered.Betty Jo was my father"s second wife, down to earth, plain, and homey as all get out. When he"d fled my mother, Father had certainly run in the opposite direction. He and Betty Jo lived in California now, with their child, my brother Phillip, age nine. I hadn"t seen my father or Phillip or Betty Jo in nearly three years.
"He said they were?"
"If he could take his vacation time then. He was going to ask."
"And you haven"t heard back," my mother murmured, almost to herself.
I didn"t say anything.
"I"ll call him tomorrow," she said decisively. "He has to let us know."
"I"d like Phillip to be ring-bearer if they"re coming," I said suddenly.It was lucky we were in Mother"s big Lincoln, because it was full of thoughts unsaid. Phillip had had a traumatic experience the last time he spent the weekend with me. They"d moved to California in a (to me) mistaken attempt to help Phillip recover, and he"d been seeing a counselor for a year afterward.According to my father"s rare letters, Phillip was fine now.Then, as we parked at Eileen"s house, I caught a glimpse through the picture window of a table covered in white with white and silver wedding bells hanging from the light fixture, and Eileen carrying in a big tray of something sure to be edible, and Sally Allison, her cohostess, stirring a huge silver bowl of punch. On a table nearby presents wrapped in white and silver and pastels were heaped. Sally and Eileen were dressed to the teeth.As I slid out of the car it hit me smack in the psyche.
This was for me.
I was getting married.
I put one hand out to the roof of the car and the other touched my chest as if I were pledging my allegiance.
I knew a moment of delight, followed by a groundswell of panic.
"Just hit you, huh?" Mother asked.
I nodded, unable to say a word.
We stood in the dark, looking through that window, for a couple of minutes. It was oddly companionable.
"Which way is it going to be?" Mother finally asked.
It was the first time she"d spoken to me as if I were absolutely grown up.
"Let"s go in," I said, and started up the sidewalk to the front door.
Chapter Four .
MOTHER AND I stood nervously in the foyer waiting to say h.e.l.lo to the first arrivals before being put wherever we were supposed to sit during the present opening. Though Mother was nervous, she looked as composed and cool as she always did, as though she couldn"t sweat. But one eyelid twitched from time to time.
One of Mother"s friends came in first, and then Amina"s mom, Miss Joe Nell, one of my favorite people. And then the guests came too fast for me to talk much to each one; it was like a "This Is Your Life" theme party. The pile of presents rose higher and higher, and the room got fuller and fuller, and older women who had been my mother"s friends for years mixed with women my own age whom I"d known all my life-Susu Hunter, Lizanne Buckley Sewell, Linda Erhardt, and several other-and women who had to be asked because of some connection to my life, like Patty Cloud, my mother"s office manager, and Melinda, wife of my mother"s husband"s son, and a couple of women I"d asked just to say "Ha!" such as Lynn Liggett Smith (wife of my former flame Arthur Smith) and Emily Kaye (love of my former flame the Reverend Aubrey Scott).After the usual twenty minutes or so of chatter, during which I answered the same questions six or seven times, Sally made a little speech about my upcoming marriage, including a joke about how long we"d all waited for that day-thanks, Sally-and then the present opening began. I had registered my color preferences in towels and bathroom items with the local stores, and of course I got lots of those, and toothbrush holders and wastebaskets and even a monogrammed towel rack, which left me practically speechless. I could hardly wait to show it to Martin, and picturing his face started a fit of the giggles I had trouble suppressing. I pa.s.sed each present around the circle of women so it could be admired and its giver complimented on her choice.It was the lingerie, of course, that provoked the most oohs and ahhs. I got a leopard print teddy from Susu, which engendered quite a few risque comments, and some silk pajamas from my mother in a champagne color, and from the shower hostesses a truly gorgeous negligee set in black lace. Showing that to Martin was going to be fun, too.
Sally and Eileen had popped in and out during the present opening, vanishing to the kitchen after commenting on a gift or two, and now they both appeared and took their place at the loaded dining-room table, Sally pouring punch into delicate gla.s.s cups and Eileen cutting and serving the cake on her best china at the opposite end. As the honoree, I was expected to go first, one of the other nice things about being a bride. We all made the ritual comments about how good everything looked, and about how we"d just eaten supper so we weren"t sure we could jam in another bite, and then we loaded down our plates and stuffed ourselves.
Of course it was all good, but it could have been sawdust and I would still have enjoyed it. Some women reminisced about their showers and weddings, some asked Sally and Eileen for recipes, others talked about ordinary Lawrence-ton happenings, others asked me about the wedding plans, and a few of the older ladies quizzed me about Martin and who "his people" were.As some of the guests were returning their empty plates to the sideboard, a very old lady came to sit in the chair beside me that my mother had temporarily vacated. She had wrinkles like cobwebs gridding her face, her eyes were the color of bleached denim, and her thinning hair was snowy. She was wearing one of those flowered dresses that were the staple of Lawrenceton fashion. This particular example was sky blue with pink flowers, and the lady who wore it was the same thickness all the way up and down. This was Mrs. Lyndower Dawson, christened Eunice, but since childhood called Neecy."How are you, Miss Neecy?" I asked.
"I get long pretty good, Aurora. As long as the Lord lets me, I want to get around on my own," Neecy told me solemnly.
In Lawrenceton, we were a little worried about the Lord letting Miss Neecy get around, since she was still driving and tended to take the middle of the road and ignore little things like stop signs.
"Now, tell me something, Aurora," Neecy said slowly, and I realized we were getting to the crux, here. "I hear that that young man of yours has bought you the so-called Julius house."
"That"s right," I said agreeably, tickled at Martin being my "young man" and curious about what she was going to tell me.
"They call it the Julius house, but of course it isn"t really."
"Oh?"
"Of course not; those people just lived there a few months. It"s really the Zinsner house, they originally built it and lived in it for oh, sixty or sixty-five years before Sarah May sold it to those Juliuses." "Is that right?" Actually, I"d known that, but I didn"t want to dam Miss Neecy in midflow.
"Oh, yes, honey, the Zinsners were an old Lawrenceton family. They got here before my family, even. And the branch that built that house was the last of the family. They built out there when town was two and a half miles away on a poor dirt road, rather than a mile away on a paved one." I nodded encouragingly.
"I remember when they were building that house, John L. and Sarah May were fighting like cats and dogs about how to do it. John L. wanted things one way, Sarah May wanted "em another. Sarah May wanted a gazebo in the backyard, and John L. told her she"d have to build one with her own hands if she wanted it.Sarah May was one smart woman, but that she couldn"t do. But she had her own way about the porch. After the house was all but finished, she told John L. she had to have a front porch, a big one. Now John L. had already had the roof completed, and he didn"t want to tear it up again, so that"s why the roof of the porch is separate. John L. just put in guttering between the two parts. Then Sarah wanted a two-car garage instead of a one-car, and though they only had one car, John L. added another stall for another car. And then she wanted an extra closet, but John L. and her had a fight and he boarded it up to spite her!" Neecy shook her head as she remembered the battling Zinsners.
"They"re both gone now?" I asked gently.
"Gosh, no, someone as mean as Sarah May takes a long time to kill," Neecy said cheerfully. "She"s over in Peachtree Leisure Apartments, a nice name for that old folks" home on Pike Street, where the old fire station used to be. I go to visit my friends out there from time to time, and I see Sarah May right often, though some days she doesn"t know me. And that woman is out there, too, come to think of it."
"What woman do you mean, Miss Neecy?"
"That Julius woman"s mother. Got an Italian name. Toti-no. Melba Totino." I hadn"t known the family who"d built the house still had living members, and I hadn"t known The Mother-in-law (as she was invariably referred to in local legend) was still living, much less still living in Lawrenceton."There, you didn"t know all that, did you?" said Neecy in a pleased way. "Not too many of us around to remember things the way they were." "Thanks for telling me," I said sincerely.
"Oh, we old people aren"t much good for anything except remembering," Neecy said with a deprecatory wave of her hand.
Of course, I protested as I was supposed to, and she ended up happy, which she was supposed to. I thanked her profusely for her gift of scented "guest" soap shaped like seash.e.l.ls, and that pleased her, too.She got up to go and thought of one more thing to say. "That man you"re marrying, Aurora, is it true he"s from Chicago, Illinois?" "Well, he moved here from Chicago. Actually, he grew up in Ohio." Neecy Dawson shook her head slowly from side to side. She patted me absently on the shoulder and began steering her way over to my mother. I saw her engage my mother in serious conversation.
Later, when we were loading the presents into the trunk of Mother"s car, I asked her what Neecy had been saying. Mother laughed."Well, if you really want to know-she asked me if it was really true that you were marrying a Yankee. I said, "Well, Miss Neecy, he is from Ohio." And she said, "Poor Aida. I know you"re worried. But there are some nice ones. Aurora will be all right, honey.""
Chapter Five .
NOW THAT I"D TAKEN ON renovating the Julius house-I just couldn"t think of it as the Zinsner house-the time before the wedding flew by. I got the apartment above the garage finished first. The carpet was laid within three days after the painter finished the trim. I cleaned the furniture I"d bought, positioned it invitingly, relined the kitchen shelves, cleaned the stove, and made the bed.I"d gotten a set of china for four at WalMart, and some wedding gift pots and pans I didn"t need went into the kitchen cabinets. I put towels in the bathroom, hung a shower curtain, and arranged some of the seash.e.l.l soap in a soap dish. It looked pretty and inviting and clean, and I hoped I"d done Martin"s friends proud.
The work on the big house went slower. Some of the workmen I wanted were busy, and the carpet took longer to come than it was supposed to, and I had a hard time picking out paint and wallpaper. I was frantic to have it finished; my townhouse and Mother"s guest bedroom were overflowing with the wedding gifts and furniture I"d kept from Jane Engle"s house. Martin"s furniture was still in storage at a warehouse closer in to Atlanta, and I made a trip there to see what he had. In between making decisions, fretting over delays, and spending hours worrying, I had to get dressed appropriately and punctually for the remaining parties in our honor.
Now, these are all very pleasant problems to have, I know. But I did begin to get tired, and frayed, and desperate. Martin seemed unprecedentedly grim, too, though his bad mood didn"t seem to have anything to do with the wedding.So I was really glad to greet the Youngbloods when they arrived from Florida. I was at the Julius house when they drove in at noon one day about a week and a half before the wedding.
Angel Youngblood emerged from the dusty old Camaro first. Her legs swung out and out and out, and then the rest of her followed. I gaped. Angel was easily as tall as her husband. Muscular and sleek as a cheetah, she had pale blond hair gathered up in a ponytail. She was wearing the loose sheeting pants that weightlifters wear when they train, and a gray tank top. She had a broad, thin-lipped mouth, a straight nose, and brilliant blue eyes in a narrow face.She wore no makeup. She looked around her carefully, her eyes gliding right over me and then coming back to note me. We looked at each other curiously."I"m Aurora," I said finally, shaking her hand, which was an experience for both of us. "You must be Angel?"
"Yes," she said. "It"s been a long drive. It"s good to get out of the car." She stretched, an impressive process that showed muscles I didn"t even know women had.
Her husband came to stand beside her. He looked even swarthier, his face more pock-marked, against her smooth sleekness.
"Shelby, nice to see you again," I said.
"Aurora," he nodded.
The carpet layers, who were carrying in the pad, stopped to stare at Angel.
Shelby looked at them. They hastily headed into the house.It wasn"t that she was pretty. She wasn"t. And her chest was almost flat. She was just very obviously strong and fit and golden tan, and her hair was such a pretty color. It was really just like seeing a wild animal walk into the yard- beautiful and scary at the same time.
"Please come see the garage apartment," I said a little shyly. "I hope you like it." I turned to precede them up the steps. Suddenly I reconsidered. "No," I said, turning. "Here are the keys."
It was theirs, they should see it alone, without me there to make them feel that they had to admire it. I left to start overseeing the carpet layers.About an hour later they came to the house, looking about them carefully, like cats examining a new environment.
While Shelby went upstairs at my invitation to finish the tour, Angel put a broad hand on my shoulder to get my attention. I looked up at her."It"s the nicest place we"ve lived in years," she said unexpectedly. "Shelby told me what it was like before. Thank you for everything." "You"re welcome. If you want to change anything, now is the time, with all these home repair people coming in and out."
She looked at me blankly, as if changing her environment was an alien concept.
"Where do you want us to park?"
"Since Martin and I don"t have both cars here, just park in the garage. I don"t know what we"ll work out later after the wedding, but we"ll think of something." "Okay. We"ve carried our suitcases up, and we"re ready to start work." "Work" sounded more formal than the casual "helping you out" relationship Martin had suggested. But I certainly did need help.