Big Stone Gap (21 page)

“See you at Iva’s.” I grab my hat off the bookshelf and go to meet Theodore.

I’ve never been to Iva Lou’s trailer in Danberry Heights, but it’s a beauty. The outside is sleek, ecru wood panels set off by crisp black shutters. Iva attached a redwood deckette at the entrance. An old-fashioned light fixture on an antique pole at the curve of the entrance casts a pretty golden glow as you enter. I arrive alone. Theodore is coming in his own car; he has a school-board meeting in the morning and might have to cut out early.

The interior decor is beige and modern—the perfect backdrop for a cool blonde like Iva Lou. The shag carpeting is a thick salt-and-pepper mix, very cozy. Iva Lou’s inner circle is packed into the trailer. She has made macaroni and cheese, salad, and slaw. There are leftover mints and lots of cake—plenty to eat. She bought wedding paper plates and napkins with a bride and groom on them. Lyle is toasting pals with a bottle of beer. He looks like the lord of the manor now; he definitely fits in. Iva Lou feeds him a biscuit, then kisses the crumbs away. I’m starving, so I dig into the hot macaroni and cheese. Mama never made this dish, but I’ve always loved it. The soft elbow noodles nestled in butter and cheddar cheese melt in my mouth. The crushed potato chips on top give it a delicious salty crunch. I may have seconds. Sweet Sue comes up behind me with a plate of cake.

“How’s it going, A-vuh Maria?”

“Great. How are you?”

“I got back with Mike.” Mike Tinsley is laughing heartily at one of Lyle’s jokes. He seems happy to be part of the Gap social scene again. “Yeah, the kids missed him.” The space between Sweet Sue’s eyebrows is knit into a little square. “I did too, of course.” I smile and chew; as long as I’m chewing, I don’t have to talk. I look at Sweet Sue’s face. She really is very pretty. Her eyes are a clear ocean-blue. There are little crinkles around them now, but they give her a look of knowing and experience, which she wears well. I wonder if Jack Mac ever told her he proposed to me. I don’t think he did, because she doesn’t seem uncomfortable with me. I am most definitely not a rival.

“Well, I’ll see you later.” Sweet Sue smiles and wedges through the crowd to get to Mike.

“What happened to the pink dress?” I hear from the entrance to the den. Now I see why Sweet Sue scooted off like a possum: It’s Jack Mac. He stands in the kitchen doorway with his arms folded.

“It was cutting off circulation. I couldn’t take it another minute.”

“What about the hat?”

He smiles at me and moves close, and I must say, everything this guy says sounds like a come-on to me. There’s something in that slow delivery and those gluttonous pauses that makes you feel buck naked. I pull my cardigan closed and button it.

“Are you cold?”

“Ever since I had the Deep Sleep, I get shivers.” I hope he buys the lie, but I don’t think he does.

“Do I scare you?”

I laugh right out loud. “No, sir, you don’t.”

“I don’t know. You get jumpy when I’m around.”

“I do?” I don’t notice that I do, but even if I do, I don’t want this man pointing out my insecurities to me.

“What did you dream about during the Deep Sleep?” he wonders out loud.

Okay, now I get it. He’s drunk. He’s drunk and he’s making a pass at me. He probably had the Tuckett sisters in the den and flirted with them and got nowhere, so he moved to the kitchenette, and it’s my turn on the way to the living room, where he’ll hit on Iva Lou’s cousins in from Knoxville, and then he’ll go right up to Mike Tinsley and punch him in the mouth and Sweet Sue will scream, and the guys will pull them apart, and Mike will be bleeding and he’ll tell Jack Mac to stay the hell away from his woman, and Jack will tell Mike he was a no-good husband, and Sweet Sue will have to choose and we’ll all watch and be horrified and hope nobody’s got a gun.

“Did you dream during your Deep Sleep, Ave Maria?” Jack Mac asks me again.

I shrug as though I don’t remember, and I keep eating the macaroni and cheese.

“Where do you go when you look off like that?” He totally caught me. Now what am I going to say? You know what? I’m going to tell him the truth.

“I imagined you flirting with every woman at this party and then working your way over to Sweet Sue and trying to reclaim her, and you and Mike Tinsley getting in a bloody brawl and turning the trailer over.” Jack throws his head back and laughs.

“Now you know never to ask me what I’m thinking.” I turn to walk away, but he grabs my arm.

“I have something in the truck for you.”

“I’ll bet you do.” Sometimes the mountain girl in me comes out. I try to gracefully remove my arm from his grasp, but he grips it more tightly.

Then he laughs again, this time even louder.

“Are you drunk, Jack?”

“I haven’t had a drop since the wedding punch. And you know how cheap Nellie is with the spirits.” Okay. This is really bad. He isn’t drunk. So he means everything he’s saying. Now what do I do?

“Come with me.”

He gets a grip on my elbow and won’t let go. He guides me through the crowd in the trailer and out to the parking field. He moves fast, and I have to skip to keep up with him. It’s dark, but I’m not afraid.

Jack finds his truck and reaches into the front seat. He gives me a brown paper bag. I move to the streetlight so I can see the contents. It’s a book. A shiny, new copy of
Schilpario: A Life in the Mountains
, the very book I saw on the front seat of his truck a few months ago.

“Is this for me?”

“It better be. I can’t even pronounce it.” Jack Mac smiles at me as I open the book. “I had to special-order it out of Charlottesville. It’s out of print, so they had to do a search. I thought it would be of some help to you, since you were trying to find your daddy.”

I’m having a very strange sensation inside my body right now. I feel compelled to embrace him, to thank him for his kindness. But there are so many questions. When I told him about trying to find my father, he was at the Sub Sandwich Carry-Out with Sweet Sue. We didn’t talk about it for very long, and why should he take such an interest in it? Why does he care? I look at his face. He cares. I have this feeling that he knows more about me than I have told him. I hug the book to my chest; the paper smells so good, and the cover is cool and shiny. And then he pulls me close and holds me. The sandalwood and lime is so familiar, and so sweet, that I breathe deeply to take it in, and also to steady my racing heart, which is in desperate need of oxygen. My heart is not palpitating; that condition seemed to correct itself during the Deep Sleep. This is a different kind of thumping, a kind I haven’t felt before.

I bury my face in his chest; it seems as though there is a place carved out for me there. I can hear the Statler Brothers as they sail out of Iva Lou’s trailer and into the woods; laughter and chatting underscore it; I am very comfortable right here in this moment.

A few minutes pass, and Jack Mac lifts my head with his hands. I am sleepy now; every muscle in me is relaxed.

“May I kiss you?” he asks.

I search my brain for a witty comeback, but I can’t think of any. He senses I’m searching for one, and he’s determined to nip it in the bud. Sometimes humor has no place in life, and this is one of those times. He traces his lips from the top of my head and down my nose until he finds my lips. Then he kisses me.

The ground under my feet is soft, and I am sinking into it. I am like a stick in a sandy creek, going deeper and farther down into the dirt, meeting no resistance but the lack of my own will.

“I think we should get back to the party.”

“Why?” He kisses me again. I stop him, remembering Iva Lou, the party, and my responsibilities.

“Thank you for the book.”

He looks at me, a little confused.

“Let’s go back,” I say quietly. We walk back to the trailer in silence.

Misty Dawn Slagle Lassiter, six pounds, seven ounces, was born at 12:03
A.M.
on March 17, 1979, at Saint Agnes Hospital, Norton, Virginia. Her mama, Tayloe, is doing fine; she had an easy labor, and now she can plan her wedding. Betty came to the Pharmacy with pictures of the little one, and she looks to be a stunner just like her mother. Fleeta is concerned that Misty may develop the Lassiter underbite, but it doesn’t appear to be so in the pictures.

Since I sold the Pharmacy to Pearl, I’ve had a different attitude about it. I don’t take business problems so seriously; markups on medications don’t irritate me as much; and to hell with the dusting. Fleeta and Pearl take good care of the place, but something inside me has shifted.

I am teaching Pearl the log-in procedure on medication when Nan MacChesney comes into the store. She’s using a cane. Her white hair is pulled back in a tight braid. Her eyes search the store for me.

“I know you’re in here somewhere, Ave Maria. I done saw your Jeep out front.”

“I’m back here, Mrs. Mac. In the pharmacy.”

“Oh.” She comes over to the pharmacy counter. She barely reaches the top of it.

“How are you?” I ask.

“I’m all right. Can you come out of there and talk to me, please?”

“Sure.” I come out from behind the counter and stand in front of her.

“Is there somewhere we could talk?” she asks me.

“There’s the back room,” Fleeta offers. Does Fleeta eavesdrop on every exchange that takes place in this store? I give her a look and take Mrs. Mac to the back room. I pull out a chair, but she declines, so I sit. Otherwise, I tower over her.

“Now, I know this ain’t none of my business, but I got a son to worry about. I just want you to know that he is a fine gentleman and a faithful son. They don’t make ’em no better than my boy. Now, I know he likes you. He thinks you’re a fine woman. And I encouraged him in that, ’cause I done think you made all the right decisions in your life. You’ve been loyal and you’ve been good, and that ought to be rewarded. I know you don’t see yourself as nobody’s wife or mother, ’cause you’ve said so from time to time to me. I’m not here to repeat hearsay and gossip, I’m only going on what I know directly from your lips to my ears. But I think you need to take some time and reflect on yourself. I’m not telling you what to do, but if you let my son slip through your fingers, you’ll be the sorriest gal in the world. I know what he’s made of, and it’s choice. He’s a man of quality. So you go ahead and do whatever it is you’re gonna do, but I just wanted somebody to tell you the real story about my son. You couldn’t do no better.”

She raps her cane on the floor and looks at me.

“Thank you for your thoughts. I know you mean well, and I intend no disrespect. I agree with you. You’ve raised a fine son. But I have other plans. I want to travel, see things. Try new things. Alone. Can you understand that?”

Mrs. Mac shrugs, unconvinced. “I just had to speak my mind,” she says as I lead her out of the back room. She goes out the front through the jingling doors.

“What the hell did she want?” Fleeta wants to know.

“Like you don’t know.”

“I don’t. Tell me.”

“Fleeta. Come on. You’re both in the DAR. That’s the front burner of hot gossip in Big Stone Gap.”

“Well, I have heard that somebody saw you swapping slobbers with her son at Iva Lou’s trailer park and it done got around.” Fleeta shrugs.

“I hate this town!”

“What do you want from me? I can’t help I heard it.” Fleeta dismisses me with a wave of her feather duster and goes back to work.

“Don’t you think Jack MacChesney is cute?” Pearl asks from behind the counter.

“Pearl. That’s enough.” God knows what she’ll ask me next. It’s none of her business if he’s a good kisser. What is wrong with these people? Do they expect me to magically transform after one kiss? Am I supposed to drop everything for Jack Mac? What about
my
plans? What about what
I
want?

Pearl smiles and concentrates on her work. I am trying to figure out which building in the Gap is the tallest, so I can jump off of it.

Iva Lou returns from her honeymoon all refreshed. There’s a wedding card from the staff of the Wise County Library on the dashboard of the Bookmobile, the only sign of change since she got married. I listen to her recount the awesome beauty of Gatlinburg and Ruby Falls (one of the three natural wonders in Tennessee), and then I ask to see
The New York Times
.

“What d’you need that for?” Iva Lou wants to know.

“The travel section.”

“Well, they only got that on Sundays. I could score you last week’s edition. Is that okay?”

“Whatever you’ve got is fine.” I wish Iva Lou would go and get it. She never makes a fuss when I want something. Why now?

“You going somewhere?” She sounds worried.

“I don’t know yet.”

“Well, don’t go springing surprises on me. I’m an old married lady now, and I can’t take much.”

“You’ll be the first to know my plans when I make them,” I promise her. She looks relieved.

“I got it below, in the storage bin. I’ll fetch it.”

What Iva Lou doesn’t know is that I am leaving Big Stone Gap. I’ve spent my whole life here, and it is time for a change. I want to challenge myself. I want to see what people are like from other places and get to know them. I want adventure. Yes, I would even like to fall in love. I think I should start at the beginning, in the place where my people are from. I am going to Italy. Maybe I’ll like it so much I will stay there forever. I am in the last minutes of my youth; I don’t want to wait any longer to be young.

I take a good long look at the Bookmobile. This may be the last time I’m ever on it, and I want to remember every detail. (Now that I want to leave, tomorrow would not be soon enough.) I want to remember the shelves made of pink Formica trimmed in green; the snap elastics that hold them in place while the vehicle is in motion; the three Murphy stools that pop up against the books when they’re not being used; the Styrofoam cups; the Sanka packets; the checkout stamp; the rearview mirror Iva Lou uses to apply makeup; and especially, most especially, the smell of it.

“Here you go, Ave.” Iva Lou hands me the travel section in pristine condition. She really is the best librarian there ever was. She respects library materials.