Big Stone Gap (6 page)

“We were just leaving,” Theodore says firmly. Nellie turns to me.

“Ave Maria, tell him this is important,” she says.

“It can wait,” Theodore tells her with finality.

“It can’t wait. I got a call from John Warner’s press person, and they want a confirmation that the town is going to go all out for his campaign stump through Southwestern Virginia.”

Nellie’s mouth keeps moving, but I can’t hear her. Her lips and hair are orange, and she has placed her hand on Theodore’s chest. John Warner is married to Elizabeth Taylor of
National Velvet
fame, and they’re coming to town and Nellie wants Theodore to put together a tribute salute in her honor. The town wants to show off its best asset: the Powell Valley High School marching band. They want a doozy of a halftime show. I can’t contemplate all this right now. After tonight my life as it has been will be changed forever. I am a lover! In the scrap heaps of these hills of coal, someone found me. I am wanted! I have been waiting all of my life for this.

As folks sail by in a blur, talking and laughing, it occurs to me that they probably believe that Theodore and I, as close as we are, have a full relationship already. But since Theodore moved to town and we became friends, my mother had been ill, and I didn’t feel right spending time away from her. So Theodore and I have had friendship without romance. At first I thought something might be wrong, but now I understand. He was waiting. Waiting for my heart to settle down from its grief, so it could make room for him!

Now the years seem wasted, like a lifetime, and I want to shove bossy Nellie Goodloe down on the wood chips and gag her with the polka-dot scarf she has tied around her neck chuck-wagon-style. Doesn’t she understand that my body is filled with such longing that I have the strength to turn a truck over with my bare hands? That I have dreamed of wrapping myself around this man from the first day we met? Can’t she see that I’m a ripe plum that will explode if touched? I interrupt them, and I am not one bit sorry.

“Excuse me. This is something you two can discuss later. Good night, Nellie.”

I grab Theodore, and we walk out of the theater onto the street. “My house?”

“Great.” Theodore helps me into the front seat of his truck, which has now turned into a stately carriage that will take me from my dreams to a real place. He climbs in and puts his arm around me as we back out. I think to myself,
Time stops when we get what we want.

I haven’t made spaghetti since Mama died. I pull out her recipe book. When she found out she was sick, she wrote everything down for me. The writing starts out in good English, then loses its clarity. She tried to finish the task when she was really sick. At the end of the notebook, most of the recipes are in pure Italian.

“Cut up the garlic,” I tell Theodore. “The basil’s in the window garden. I’ll start the water.”

Theodore goes about his chores. I notice we’re not talking. Is this what happens to folks when things turn physical? Do kisses take the place of words? I think back on my past romances, all so long ago, and they seem insignificant, childish and silly—probably because they were. I wasn’t a real woman then, a woman who knew herself. A woman alone in the world, free. Now I am a woman without strings, guilt, or parents, and I don’t know what to say. How do I begin?

“How long have your parents been married?” I ask innocently.

“Forty-two years.”

“Are they happy?”

“They’re perfect for each other. He drinks and she hides it. Why do you ask?”

“We’ve never talked about it before.”

“It seems like we have. I think you know everything about me.”

“Have you ever been in love before?”

“Have you?” he asks, quite deliberately not answering me first.

This is a loaded question for me. I don’t guess that I have, although there was a nice Polish Catholic guy from Chicago—I met him at a craps table during a Mardi Gras fund-raiser at Saint Mary’s. I went with him for a year and a half. He wanted to marry me, but I couldn’t see it. When it was over I was sad, but I wasn’t broken-hearted.

“I guess I was. Once.” I pick up the garlic and swish it into the olive oil in the pan on the stove.

“Only once?”

“Yes.”

Theodore mulls this over, and I take a seat at the kitchen table and watch him chop some basil. I wonder if I like him there at the sink chopping. Does he fit in this house? Does he fit in my life? Will we live here in this house when we’re married or in his cabin out on Aviation Road? I hear my mother’s voice: “
Pazienza!
Slow down! Think, Ave Maria! Think!”

I straighten the silverware on the placemat. I like two placemats. It looks like a family lives here again. The table holds four. Children! Am I too old? Some of my classmates from high school have grandchildren. I am not too old. Thank God I have good Italian genes. No Scotch-Irish wrinkles for me. What am I thinking? What am I saying? I catch my reflection in the steamed glass of the kitchen window. I am dewy. No! I’m soaking wet! My palms and face are sweating. I’m making myself sick and nervous. I’m a practical person, but I have always tended to daydream, and now I’m picturing myself married to this man and for some reason it’s a real romance killer. I don’t want to think about marriage just yet—I just want to have some sex. I need to be held! God help me!

“People are gonna talk about us,” I promise him.

“Let them.”

“Why are we cooking?” I’m asking this question to be coy and imply, Let’s not eat, let’s kiss.

“Aren’t you hungry?” Theodore asks.

I nod. But I’m hungry for everything: food, him, and all that life has to offer. Everything seems possible to me all of a sudden. How will I tell him?

Theodore continues chopping. What beautiful hands he has! His large hand and squarish fingers are in total control of the paring knife. The motion reminds me of a French movie I saw in Charlottesville once. When I go on buying trips, I make it my business to see foreign movies. We don’t get them down here, so they’re a treat. French movies always have love scenes in the kitchen. Somebody is eating something drippy, like a ripe persimmon, and next thing you know it’s a close-up of lips and hands and off go the lights and their clothes, and pretty soon nobody’s talking. I check my ceramic fruit bowl on the counter. One black banana. Please don’t let this be an omen.

“I haven’t . . . Well, I guess what I’m trying to . . .” Theodore keeps chopping. I persist. “What I want to say is . . .”

“I’m thinking, Ave.”

It may have been a long time since I’ve been with a man, but it doesn’t take a sex goddess to figure out that thinking is not a good sign. Men don’t think about sex. They think about how and where and when, but they could care less about the why.

“You don’t want me,” I say plainly, hoping I’m wrong. There, I’ve said it. The water in the pot is boiling foam. Theodore drops his knife and stirs and blows as bubbles trickle over the sides of the pot. He catches as many as he can with a spoon, but it keeps bubbling.

“Give me a hand.”

“You’ve got it under control.” I say this with matter-of-factness, but the truth is, my legs aren’t working. I’m in a state of shock, from the ankles up. I just made a statement that scares me, and I need to stay very small, right here in this straight-backed chair, or I’m afraid of what I might do. Theodore moves the pot off the burner. The foam subsides. He pours the spaghetti into the colander in the sink. He shakes it hard. He leaves the pot in the sink and goes to the stove. He stirs the sauce.

“We call that sauce
shway shway
,” I say, making my only contribution to the dinner.

“What is that?”

“It’s Italian dialect from where my mama came from.
Shway shway
means ‘fast.’ Fast sauce. Instant sauce.”

“It tastes great.”

“Fresh basil.”

Theodore pours the sauce onto the spaghetti. He pulls out plates and forks and sets the table.

“So you want to tell me why you kissed me?”

“
You
kissed
me
.” Theodore looks at me directly.

“No.
You
kissed
me
.” Oh God. I’m yelling.

“I went with the situation. You were kissing me, so I kissed back. And after what Sweet Sue said, I felt you needed to be kissed.”

“So you were doing me a favor?”

“Yeah.”

This is one of those moments when the steam between a man and a woman creates a wall. It’s so thick that I can’t make out Theodore’s face. I do not understand him; doesn’t he know how I feel? I want him. I want this. Where is the kissing Theodore? Where did he go?

“You aren’t in love with me, Ave.”

“What?”

“You got stirred up, that’s all.”

“I liked the kiss! It was nice! It was welcome.”

“You said you hadn’t been with a man in a long time. It’s understandable. A cup of water in the desert is welcome, too.”

I can’t believe what I’m hearing! Theodore is comparing my aching loins to dehydration. This night is not going at all as I had expected.

“What? What?” Why is it that all I can say is
What?

“I live alone. I like it. I grew up in a family with nine kids, and I’m still thrilled I don’t have to share a bed with someone. I don’t want a ‘thing.’ I like being with you. You are my best friend. I don’t want a relationship.”

“Everybody wants a relationship!”

“No. You want a relationship.”

As we eat, I am sure he is right. It is me. I want to be loved. And I want to blame somebody because I’m not. So let me blame my parents. They’re easy targets—one never loved me and the other leaves me scary letters after she’s passed away. Let me blame life. Life keeps interfering in my plans. First Fred Mulligan was sick; then I took care of Mama, business got to booming, and I took on more and more and thought about myself less and less. Poor me. I straighten up in my chair and summon all my self-esteem in my posture. Then, very casually, I lean toward Theodore.

“I can’t believe you think I kissed you.”

“You did. The whole town got a shock.”

I don’t care about the whole town. I chew in slow motion because I want to digest all of this. I initiated the kiss? I kissed him? What am I really hungry for?

“You’re going to find a good man, you know.”

Where? In the Blue Ridge Mountains? On the Trail of the Lonesome Pine? By the banks of the Powell River? Get serious, you transplant from Scranton, PA. Around here, men my age have been married since they were seventeen. Some of them are grandfathers already. There are no men! You are the man! Be my man!

“You’ll find somebody,” he assures me.

“Somebody!” Wake up, buster! I’m not the type of woman for a Somebody. I’m picky. I take an hour to eat a tuna-salad sandwich because I pick all the sweet-pickle chunks out of it before I’ll take a bite. I’m vain. I cleanse and cream my face twenty minutes before bedtime, and then I hang my head upside down over the side of my bed for an additional five to prevent jowls. I’m a snob. I want a man who reads. In thirty years I’ve never seen a man on the Bookmobile, except strange Earl Spivey, but he doesn’t count because he’s a lurker, not a reader. If this mystery man isn’t smart, I don’t want him. Why can’t Theodore see this?

“Okay, maybe not just somebody. How about a good guy, a real winner? When you kissed me tonight, you were impulsive. Daring. People around here saw you with new eyes. You watch. Something will happen.”

“If you say so.” I say this so weakly, it’s barely audible. Theodore sprinkles cheese on his spaghetti, spins a nice mound of noodles, and eats. He chews normally. Swallows. Like everything is normal! He’s ready to change the subject—like it’s been discussed thoroughly and there’s nothing more to say. He almost seems to be saying, “Okay, we kissed, it was nice, but it’s going no further, so let’s get back to our friendship.”

“Somebody needs to tell Sweet Sue Tinsley she’s not the homecoming queen anymore.”

This is another reason I want Theodore. I want to be able to come home and dissect everybody and everything. Why can’t I have this?

“She’s afraid somebody will steal her man away.” Theodore shrugs.

Were Theodore and I even at the same event tonight? The crowd was behind Jack Mac asking Sue to marry him; they kissed passionately, and it looked all sewn up to me. Am I so deprived of physical intimacy that I did not see this? How unobservant am I? Or am I living in some other universe, one I have created out of my own strange perceptions? I look away, out the window and into my yard, and what I see there is not the Potters’ oak tree that grows over the fence but a flash of Jack MacChesney in his underwear, and how strong and bearlike he was, all man, from shoulder to foot. I shake my head to erase the picture. It goes.

“I want to have sex with you tonight.” There. I just said it right out. Honestly. Clearly. Directly. Well done.

Theodore puts down his fork (another bad sign). Then he looks at me.

“You’re beautiful and desirable. But it wouldn’t work. We love each other; we are not in love with each other. If we had sex tonight, sooner or later we wouldn’t be friends. I don’t want to lose that. Would you?”

Around my fork I have twirled a mountain of spaghetti so large it is the size of a tennis ball.

I say to Theodore: “I wouldn’t.” But why can’t I have both? The lover
and
the best friend. Isn’t that the point? I know what I want. I’ve had many years to think about it. When I first saw Theodore at the Drama auditions years ago, my heart skipped a beat. “Kindred spirit” doesn’t begin to describe our connection.

I unravel the tennis ball of noodles. It makes a square on the plate, like the frame of an open window. In the square, I imagine a cartoon, primitive and bright. A buck-toothed gorilla is being chased by an angry mouse with a giant mallet. The mouse climbs up the gorilla and clunks him on the head repeatedly. The gorilla’s eyes cross, and stars shoot out of his head. The image makes me smile, so I won’t cry.

 CHAPTER THREE

Fleeta is serious about quitting. I can tell because she has cleaned up the shelf behind the register. Her lifetime supply of Coke and peanuts is gone. Her bifocals are safe in their case. Her paperwork is stacked neatly in two piles. In one stack, her professional wrestling schedules. Fleeta and Portly go to wrestling matches in Kingsport and Knoxville every chance they get. Pictures of the great wrestling stars Haystack Calhoun, Atomic Drop, Johnny Weaver, and the frightening Pile Driver are in protective clear-plastic sleeves. The wrestlers’ thick, clublike bodies are greased in oil. Their heads are smaller than their squat, muscular bodies; they look like apples on top of buildings. In the other stack, Fleeta’s recipes. When business is slow, Fleeta rewrites her recipe-card file; she’s had this project under way for about five years. In Fleeta’s block print:

MAMAW SKEEN’S POSSUM

Skin your possum. Place in a large pot and boil till tender. Add salt and pepper to taste. Make gravy with broth and add 4 tablespoons flour and
¹
⁄
₂
cup of milk. Cook until thick. Save a foot to sop gravy!

I wonder what they do with the other three feet. I flip through the cards; many of Fleeta’s specialties are included: divinity candy, a confection of whipped sugar that looks like clouds (she brings it in every Christmas), lemon squares, cheese straws, peanut butter balls, and my favorite, rhubarb pie.

“I’m putting my recipes together for my granddaughter, for when she gets murried,” Fleeta says as she stands behind me. “You ever ate possum?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Well, you’re missing out. It’s the best, most tenderest meat of all.”

Fleeta grabs her smokes and motions for me to meet her in the back office for lunch. She locks the front door and flips the
RING BELL
sign.

Fleeta sits on a folding chair, smoking. She pours a small cellophane sack of salted peanuts into her glass bottle of Coca-Cola, stops up the top with her thumb, shakes it, and when it’s fizzy chugs it back. I’m going to miss our lunches.

“Fleeta, do you really have to quit on me?”

“Honey, my mama died when she was fifty-five. I’m fifty-six. The clock is ticking. I want a life before mine’s over. I will miss the money, though.”

“I’ll give you a raise.”

“Too late for that. Come on, Ave. You got a lot ahead of you. You’re gonna get murried to that Tipton fella.”

“What?”

“His car was parked over to your house till all hours Saturday night, and Nellie Goodloe done spread it all over town that you and he was swapping slobbers on the dance floor over to the Drama. Now that’s public. Don’t hold back on me, youngun, I know you too well.”

“He doesn’t want me, Fleeta. We’re just friends.”

“No way. Shoot-fire, y’all do everything together. Y’all are each other’s destinies.” I start to argue with Fleeta, and she stops me. “Even when you put two rats in a box they might chew each other up at first, but give it time and they’ll make baby rats.”

“Fleeta, I’m eating.”

“He’s a fine-looking man. And he’s clean. I like me a clean man. And he’s got nice thick hair, and honey, after thirty you gotta put that in the plus column. He’s got them nice Irish looks and features. The rusty hair, the blue eyes. The purty smile. Law me! What more do you want in a man?”

I don’t answer her.
Nothing!
There’s no one but Theodore for me. Why won’t she stop this?

“Or do you even want a man?” Fleeta looks at me over her bifocals.

“Not just any man,” I say defensively, with my mouth full of food.

“I want you to git a good man like I got. You know, Portly and I still have intimate relations. Of course, it takes a lot longer than it used to to warm up my toaster. I done gone through The Change. And that’s a good word for it because everything done changed on me. I have to prepare for when he gets that look. But I’ll tell you one thing—Portly has him some big clubby forearms and man-hands, you know what I’m saying, he could palm my head—really, just like a basketball. And if I didn’t have those gigantic arms wrapped around me of the night, I would be one cantankerous old woman. So I know what you mean.”

“How’d you and Portly meet?”

Fleeta exhales and her eyes fill with a faraway memory. She squints to make out the details of this old picture.

“Up to the school. When East Stone Gap High School was closed down, they transferred all them kids over to Powell Valley and Portly was in the bunch. First day of school, I seen him and knew he was the one. I was feeling old, though, like I’d never find nobody.”

“How old were you?”

“Sixteen. And never been kissed. My mama was so proud of ’at. But let me tell you, when I snagged Portly, I made up for lost time. I remember the very first kiss he done give me. Up behind the bleachers up to the school. Hit was around five o’clock in the afternoon, after Portly’s baseball practice. He looked at me. I looked at him. Course we had to take the snuff out of our mouths first—Portly and I both love our chewing tobacky. Well, we spit it out, and then we kissed, and the rest is history.”

I’m so wrapped up in Fleeta’s love life, I don’t hear the persistent bang of the bell on the store counter. I come to and get up to answer it. The majorettes stand at the counter, some reading the
National Enquirer
, others thumbing through
People
. Tayloe waits at the prescription-pickup window.

“I’m here for my prescription.”

“I’ll be right with you, honey.”

“It’s not ready yet?” The annoyance underscores each of Tayloe’s words, and she rolls her eyes. God, she’s impatient. I remember that she’s just a kid, and that keeps me from biting her head off.

“No, not yet,” I reply gaily.

Pearl Grimes enters the store and, upon seeing the majorettes, instantly skulks behind the hair-care rack.

“Look how fat she got!” Glenda the majorette says with authority. That’s all it takes for all the majorettes to gather round
People
magazine and gloat over the picture of some formerly slim, now chunky TV actress.

“I don’t know why somebody’d let themselves go like that,” says another.

“ ’Cause she likes to eat,” Tayloe announces. It’s not one bit funny, but all the girls die laughing, because in her circle, Tayloe gets to be funny as well as beautiful.

“She’s not as fat as Pearl Grimes, though.” A louder laugh.

I see the top of Pearl’s head disappear behind the medical-supply rack. I wonder if they saw her come in. Are they that cruel? Mrs. Spivey, Mrs. Holyfield, and Mrs. Edmonds enter the store and split up to shop. Three finer Baptist women I’ve never known. They’re also responsible for spreading more information than the town paper.

“Miss Mulligan, could you please hurry? We’ve got band practice. You know . . . with Mr. Tipton?” Another round of giggles. I guess they heard about Theodore’s car being outside my house till all hours. Now I wish I’d had sex with him, so the joke wouldn’t be on me.

I shout out from behind the counter, “It’s gonna take a minute, girls.” More sighs and eye rolls. They continue reading the magazines.

Fleeta comes out from the back. “Be careful with the magazines; we can’t hardly sell wrinkled, used ones. Folks like their reading material virginal. And I can’t blame them, as
they
are paying,” she growls.

Inspired by Fleeta’s choice of words, I seize my moment. I had a microphone installed in the prescription department because the store is large, and when I get busy I can call for the customer. I blow into the microphone. All the heads look up.

“Tayloe Slagle, your birth control pills are ready at the prescription window. Tayloe. Slagle. Your. Birth. Control. Pills. Come on over.”

Tayloe lunges for the window and grabs the white sack.

“They’re for cramps.”

“Really.” I ponder this possibility. The fine Baptist women look at one another and then at Tayloe with such disdain, they become a scary tableau on a stained-glass window.

“Charge it,” Tayloe barks as she sprints for the door. The girls follow her.

I hear the ladies murmuring in the dental-hygiene section—mission accomplished.

Fleeta is chuckling, and of course the chuckles turn into a hack. “I’m done tarred of them girls coming in here and reading and never buying. You got ’em good.”

I pick up a basket of conditioner and head for the hair-care aisle. Pearl is sitting on the floor reading labels on the backs of bottles.

“Hey, Pearl.”

“I come down for the acne treatment you told me about.”

“Then what in God’s name are you doing in hair care?”

Pearl shrugs. Her eyes are a mite puffy, so I know she heard the majorettes.

“You wanna help me restock the shelves?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Fleeta’s quitting on me, so I’m looking to hire somebody part-time. You up for it?”

“I have to ask Mama.”

“Go call your mama and ask her if you can start today.”

“We ain’t got no phone. And I don’t know if she’d let me take a job. How would I get to and from work?”

“I could take you home after work,” I offer.

“But I live up in Insko.”

“I drive fast. How much you want an hour? For your pay.”

“I don’t know.”

“Come on, Pearl. You’re gonna do sales. Sell yourself.”

“Well, I git fifty cents an hour baby-sitting the Bloomer kids.”

“Not bad. They’re a handful. I guess I gotta do better than Mrs. Bloomer.”

“How ’bout one dollar an hour?” Pearl looks away, embarrassed to be talking figures.

“Only a dollar? Hmm. You’re a real tail twister, Pearl. How about three dollars an hour?”

Pearl’s eyes widen. “Thank you, Miss Ave! Can I start tomorrow?” Pearl straightens her spine, and I swear she grows an inch.

“You sure can.”

Fleeta watches Pearl go and lights another cigarette. “Why in holy hell would you hire that girl?”

“I like her.”

“She don’t keep herself nice.”

“You heard her. She lives up in Insko.”

“I don’t care. That ain’t no excuse.”

“I’m surprised at you, Fleeta. I thought you could see potential.”

“Honey, there’s potential, and then there’s bullshit dreaming. I think you got a case of the bullshit dreams, if you know what I mean.”

Fleeta grazes the big feather duster over the vitamins, barely tickling them.

“What I meant to say was that we could transform Pearl into a great employee if she was trained by a master.”

“I told you I don’t want to work no more.” Fleeta lights up a cigarette and thinks for a moment. “But if you’re gonna throw away all I done built up here, I’d better rethink my position. All right, I’ll work part-time for ye.” I am so thrilled, I hug Fleeta, who stiffens like a telephone pole. I’ve never hugged her before; we’re both surprised.

“Three days a week and fifty cents more an hour.”

“You got a deal.”

“What? I’m no tail twister?” Fleeta says with a smile.

“You ain’t no Haystacks Calhoun.”

“No, I guess I ain’t. But given the right circumstances, I might be able to take him.” Fleeta chuckles to herself.

Pearl shows up for work the next day in her best outfit: a smock top and eyelet-trimmed bell-bottoms. Her hair is in a low ponytail. She looks neat, but that doesn’t stop Fleeta from eyeing her up and down. Pearl’s work life at Mutual begins with a shipment box haul. Fleeta and I have a system. Fleeta unloads and prices items, I break down the boxes and bring them to the Dumpster behind the store. Fleeta does product placement and displays because that feeds her creative side. She gives Pearl a dirty look when Pearl artfully places shampoo bottles in a shadow-box display. I decide it’s a good idea to separate the two of them during this training period; Fleeta is an old cat with well-defined territories and the claws to protect them. Pearl joins me, already full of suggestions on how to make the box haul a more expeditious process. This kid is smart, and it’s not bugging me.

“I want to thank you for the job. It’s really gonna help me and my mama out.”

“I’m happy to have you. And don’t worry about old Fleeta. She’s mean on the outside but marshmallow on the inside.”

“Not like Tayloe and them girls up to school. They’s mean to the bone.”

“Ignore them.”

“I try, but it ain’t easy to hide when you’re the fattest girl in school.”

“You’re not the fattest girl in school.”

“I’m pretty sure I am.”

“No, you’re the girl with the best after-school job.” This makes Pearl laugh as we throw empty boxes into the Dumpster. “Besides, those type of girls talk about everybody. Even each other.”

“You know what they’re saying about you?”

“Me? Why would they talk about me?”

“They say you’re a bastard, that Fred Mulligan wasn’t your father.”

“People say that?”

Pearl nods that they do. How naÏve of me. I thought that no one talked about me in that way. I never spread stories, so I figured none were spread about me. But in a small town a good story bears repeating, even mine.

“Well, Pearl. They’re right.”

“They are?”

“Yep. I guess my mama came over from Italy pregnant and Fred Mulligan married her because back in those days you had to get married if you were having a baby. Only thing, my mama didn’t tell me herself; she left it in a letter. I got it after she died.”