Dovey Coe (8 page)

Parnell pulled a ring from his pocket and held it to the light coming from a high window. It was clear to everyone there that it was a diamond Parnell was offering Caroline. A murmur ran through the room. Lots of folks looked over to Daddy to see if he known this was going to
happen, but he just stood there with his arms crossed over his chest, his face not betraying a bit of whatever he might be thinking.

I could tell by Caroline's expression that she was as confused as everyone else, that she hadn't been expecting this proposal for one minute. That's when it finally come clear to me what she'd been up to. She'd probably figured this being a going-away party and all, Parnell would get the point and head on home. But old Parnell was craftier than that. It didn't surprise me in the least bit that he'd decided to have the last word on the matter.

“Come on, Caroline,” he prodded after Caroline had kept her silence for several moments. “Say you'll stay here and be my pretty thing. Don't go waste yourself on being a teacher.”

That's when Caroline's confusion bloomed into fury. She started shaking her head back and forth, almost like there were a song she was keeping time to. “No, Parnell,” the words finally come out of her, her teeth clenched tight. “No, I don't believe I'd marry you if you were the last man on earth.”

W
ell, you might could imagine the expression on Parnell's face when he heard Caroline turn him down in a way that left no doubt as to where she stood on the matter. He looked like someone had reached down through his throat and pulled his guts right up out of it.

Someone yelled from the crowd, “Don't be shy now, Caroline, tell the man how you feel!” Everybody laughed good and hard at that. Almost everybody, that is. Neither Parnell nor Caroline let on that they heard.

Parnell looked Caroline up and down like he were sizing her up for the first and last time. “Fine, then, if that's the way you feel about it,”
he told her, his voice rising to a high pitch. “To hell with you, Caroline Coe!”

Daddy moved up on him real quick then, but Parnell was already headed for the door. When he got there, he turned and looked at us. “To hell with all of you,” he yelled. Then he shoved his way past Amos and was out the door, and a minute later come the sound of his car starting up and heading down the road into the night.

“That boy don't take too well to rejection, do he?” someone asked in a real amused tone. Then all sorts of voices started talking, working out amongst themselves what had just happened.

Caroline walked out of that barn just as normal and steady as you please, but her face was still red with fury. Soon as she walked out the door, Mama and MeMaw hurried out after her.

Daddy climbed up the platform and spoke quietly to Luther and Gaither, who commenced to playing again. But it was easy to see that the spirit had gone out of things. About an hour or so later, about the time the summer twilight faded, folks started gathering up their families and trickling out of the barn a little at a time. Wilson Brown come over to me to say good-bye. “You want to meet me at the farmers market on Saturday?” he
asked. “We could maybe pass an afternoon looking at the sights.”

“Sure,” I told him. “I'd like that right much.”

I
t took us Coes a long time to settle into sleep that night. Caroline went right up to bed after talking some with Mama and MeMaw, but the rest of us sat out on the porch, not quite sure what to do with ourselves. Daddy picked at his guitar a little, but you could tell his thoughts was somewhere else.

“I reckon Parnell thought he was going to force that little girl's hand, proposing to her in front of all them folks that way. I suspect he didn't count on Caroline being as stubborn as a mule, now did he?” he spoke at last, looking out into the yard where fireflies was lighting up the night one spot at a time.

Mama leaned forward in her chair, a pained look on her face. “Caroline made her point this evening, I'll give her that much. But why she couldn't have told Parnell she weren't going to marry him before all this is beyond me.”

“Well, like the man said, this too shall pass.” Daddy leaned his guitar up against the house so he could stand and stretch. “We'll get Caroline
down to school on Saturday, and pretty soon we can all forget it ever happened.”

“I just wish there were some way to stop folks from talking about it,” Mama said, knotting her fingers together with the worry of it all.

Daddy laughed. “Shoot, woman, this is the best thing that's happened to most of them folks all year! Besides, what do we care what they say? Caroline didn't ask that boy to go and make a fool of hisself that way. This weren't our fault. Any man who says a bad word about us, he ought to remember whose chickens he was eating.”

Mama give Daddy a long look then, like she was none too happy with him. Sometimes Daddy forgot that just because he didn't care none what folks thought about him didn't mean that Mama felt the same way. Mama had some high standards Daddy didn't always share, and sometimes their differences in that regard got them to feuding.

“All I got to say is that Parnell Caraway has done nothing but try to tear this family apart all summer,” I said, standing to go inside to bed. “As far as I'm concerned, he done got what he deserved.” I'd been dying to say that very thing since the conversation started, and it felt good to finally get the words out of my throat.

Daddy laughed. “I don't know that you're
right about Parnell trying to tear the family apart, but it's hard to argue that the boy had it coming to him. That'll teach him to make one of them Coe women mad!”

“Honestly, John!” Mama said, rising from her seat. “You'd make a joke out of the Second Coming.” She followed me into the house, allowing the screen door to slam behind her.

“What did I tell you, son?” I heard Daddy say to Amos from the porch. “It don't pay to get any of them women mad.”

T
he next few days ran pretty hectic, everyone trying to help Caroline get ready to go off to teachers college. There weren't a peep said about Parnell's proposal by anyone. Us Coes just pretended like that little incident fell right off the map. Besides, we had enough emotions in us about Caroline leaving that the rest of it washed out of our heads after a day or so, though later we'd think about it long and hard.

Me and Caroline had been sleeping in the same bed since Mama took me out of the crib, and it was beginning to hit me that pretty soon I'd be by myself in an ocean of blankets when Caroline was gone. For as long as I could remember, I'd been
wishing for my own room where I could spread out my collections of things and enjoy looking at them instead of having to keep it all in a box so as not to get in Caroline's way. I had a good many arrowheads and thirty-two pieces of sugar quartz. Caroline was all the time complaining about the messes I made.

So you'd think I'd be happy about Caroline going off to school, but once it sunk in that she was really going, I begun to feel right badly about it. I'd spent all my life going to sleep with the scent of her floating over me, roses and soap and something without a name that was just Caroline's particular smell. It made me feel all cozy and safe when I was real little to put my face in her pillow and breathe in deep.

I think everybody felt the same way I did. I caught Mama once or twice getting weepy over a sink full of pots and pans, and when I asked Daddy to pick a little on his guitar, he said he just weren't in the right spirits for music making. Even Tom's and Huck's ears were drooping a little low, it seemed to me. Amos stayed to the house every day after the party until Daddy put Caroline's things in the back of the truck and said it was time to go. That was right odd behavior for Amos, who would head out to Katie's
Knob even when there was two foot of snow outside.

The night before Caroline left for school, she and I had us a real heart-to-heart talk, something we didn't do too often like some sisters will, on account of how we're real different in ways. But I wanted for us to be square on the matter of Parnell Caraway.

“Did you ever once consider marrying Parnell?” I'd asked her after Mama'd turned off the lights and pulled the door closed behind her.

Caroline was quiet a long while. “Well, to answer your question, yes, I did from time to time consider marrying Parnell. I sure did like riding over to Asheville with him and going to restaurants. That was something. I thought maybe after I finished college that me and Parnell could have us a nice house somewhere and live a fine life. You know, he was real sweet to me most of the time.”

She paused, like she were remembering the good times she had shared with Parnell. But when she spoke again, it was clear those times held no truck with her in the light of more recent events. “But, law, when he made that remark about me being too dumb to be a teacher, well, that was it. How could a person say such a thing? You don't believe that, do you?”

I scrambled to come up with a reply. “Remember how you helped Lonnie Matthews with his math problems at school?” I asked. “Only a real smart person could have helped someone as stupid as Lonnie. It shows you'd make a right good teacher.”

Caroline reached over and petted me on the shoulder. “I appreciate you for saying that, Dovey. I ain't—I'm not—claiming to be some brilliant scientist or some such thing. But I swear I get tired of folks only paying attention to how I look.”

I decided it was best not to point out that Caroline made use of her looks whenever there was something she coveted and could use her good looks to get. I was fairly certain such a remark would not be appreciated.

“I just wish Parnell wouldn't have made me so mad when he proposed,” Caroline said after a moment, her voice full of regret. “I hadn't meant to be so harsh when I told him no. It just came as such a big surprise, that proposal of his coming when it did, in front of the entire county. I thought he'd seen what a joke I'd played on him with that party, and that would be that. I didn't reckon on him pulling a ring out of his pocket.”

With that, she turned to the wall and went to
sleep. Me, I stayed awake for quite some time after, rethinking the events of the evening, relishing the scene of Caroline's rejection of Parnell, even if Caroline did regret it. If he'd been dreaming of being the boss of me and sending Amos away, his dreams was dead and gone now. I admit for a slip of a second, I almost felt sorry for Parnell getting humiliated that way, but I got over it right quick.

The plan was for Mama and Daddy to take Caroline down to Watauga County, which was about an hour away from us, on Saturday and stay over at Daddy's cousin Ray's house in Deep Gap that night. Me and Amos would go down to MeMaw and PawPaw's in town at nightfall and go to church with them on Sunday. Mama and Daddy aimed on being back in time for Sunday dinner.

I always enjoyed staying at MeMaw and PawPaw's house. MeMaw was a right good cook, and she always gave us biscuits and sausage gravy for breakfast, which is my favorite. She kept her kitchen full of all kinds of cookies for her grandbabies. At least that's who she claimed them cookies was for. MeMaw was right famous for her sweet tooth. She liked to keep a handful of gingersnaps or Mexican wedding cakes, which are
them little powdered cookies that sort of fall to pieces in your mouth, wrapped in a napkin in her purse. She'd feed you one if you started getting restless in church, and she'd eat one herself just to keep you company.

Saturday morning we all got up good and early to send Caroline off. Mama packed her and Daddy and Caroline a breakfast of biscuits and preserves to eat while they was driving, and told me and Amos to fix ourselves a breakfast of whatever we pleased, just make sure to do the dishes after.

Me and Amos helped Daddy bring down Caroline's trunks to the truck and then stood on the porch to say our good-byes. Caroline looked real nice in her traveling suit and a matching hat, but I could tell she had butterflies knocking around in her stomach. I felt right funny myself, like a rock had caught in my throat. My eyes got real watery when I give Caroline a hug good-bye, but it might have just been that perfume she was wearing that made a few tears slip out from me.

I thought of our talk as I watched Caroline ride away down the mountain. I was sad to say farewell, but maybe it was best that she was going away for a while. She needed to get rid of the ill feelings Parnell had filled her with. In the
meantime, the rest of us Coes could get back to normal, now that Parnell was gone from our lives.

That was one good thing about this whole mess, I thought, waving at the truck. At least Parnell Caraway wouldn't want to have no more to do with my family. He'd be leaving us alone from now on, that much was for sure.

As it turned out, I had underestimated Parnell Caraway's intentions considerably.

T
om and Huck ran after Daddy's truck as it made its way down our road, something between a bark and a moan coming out of their mouths. I turned to Amos to ask him what he wanted to eat, even though I weren't feeling real hungry right then. I just wanted to get on and do something. Amos led me into the kitchen, where he pulled out the fixings for flapjacks. I made up a mess of them, and by the time they were cooking on the griddle, I had an appetite working in me. We piled our plates high and poured on the blueberry syrup, then went out to the porch to eat. Mama always made us eat at the table, so eating on the porch was kind of a vacation for me and Amos.

After we roamed through the house a bit, getting a feel for it emptied of everyone but ourselves, we decided to head on down to the farmers market to meet Wilson. I run a comb through my hair and made sure my shirt didn't have any spots, which was about as much of a beauty routine as I had. Amos was outside collecting Tom and Huck to drop them over to MeMaw's while we went to the market, and once I come down ready to go, the four of us went into town.