Etta Mae's Worst Bad-Luck Day (17 page)

After checking the hall for any sign of Valerie, like smoke or brimstone, and sneaking down three flights of stairs to the basement level, we came out into the hospital parking lot.

“I think my car’s over this way,” I said, heading for the visitors’ lot. “Jennie drove me here last night, and Mack followed in my car so I’d have it this morning. There it is.” I pointed toward it, sitting between a BMW and a new Toyota.

“Sorta stands out, don’t it?” Skip said.

“I wouldn’t knock it if I was driving something that won’t keep the rain out.”

He grinned and got in the passenger seat, while I scrambled through my bag for the keys. “Here they are.” I cranked the car and pulled out. “First thing,” I said, “I’m going to cruise this lot and see if Valerie’s here yet. Look for a little green Mercedes sports car. That’ll be her.”

I drove up and down the rows of parked cars, though at that time of morning there weren’t that many visitors. It was easy to see that her car wasn’t there.

“You have any money, Skip?”

“Yeah, I got a few dollars.”

“Then let’s go to Hardee’s and get a sausage biscuit and some coffee. We’ll come back when we’re finished and maybe she’ll be here by then.”

That’s what we did, and, sure enough, we saw her little green car as soon as we pulled back into the visitors’ lot.

My heart started pounding then, I was getting so excited. Nothing was going to stop me now. My hands trembled on the wheel as the moment I’d been counting on came closer and closer. It was the strangest feeling, because sausage and coffee and bread dough started sloshing around in my stomach, and I thought I was going to be sick. A lot of people get scared as they get close to the top of the ladder of success. I’d read that somewhere, and I guessed that’s what was happening to me. A few second thoughts are to be expected, now and then, when you’re just about to get ahead.

 • • • 

Skip was right on my heels when I went into the kitchen at Mr. Howard’s house. He’d smiled to himself all the way over there, looking out the window and patting his hand on his knee in time to Alan Jackson on the radio.

“I’m gonna get me one of them one of these days,” he’d said.

“One of what?”

“Ford trucks.”

I shook my head, having nothing to say about the way his mind worked. I couldn’t understand him, which was nothing new, but I think I’d be a little down in the mouth if I’d had my ticket stolen off me. One good thing, though, we didn’t have to worry about being followed by the Pucketts anymore. They’d gotten what they wanted when they picked Skip clean, and as Skip noted, he was just happy to be off the floorboard.

Losing his lottery ticket didn’t seem to bother him at all, being just as eager to help me realize my dream as he’d been about his own. There’s something to be said for taking every day as it comes, and having no ambition to better yourself. That way, as Skip said, you never had to worry about being disappointed.

“Emmett,” I said, as soon as I got in the door at Mr. Howard’s house. “Today’s the day. Is he up and dressed?”

“He been up. Tell me he feel like a young man again. You really gonna do it, Miss Etta?”

“I am. I surely am, if Mr. Howard’s still willing. And sounds like he is. Oh, Emmett, you remember Skip Taggert, don’t you? He was on the floorboard yesterday, but today, his troubles’re over. He’s going to help me with Mr. Howard.”

“How do,” Emmett said, shaking Skip’s hand. “I ’member you from the time you burned up that football field. Lordamercy, you sho’ could run.”

Skip grinned, reliving his days of glory. Maybe I would’ve, too, if I’d had any.

“How long before Valerie gets back, you reckon?” I asked Emmett.

“Won’t be long. She talk to the doctor ’fore she left, and she say she bringin’ Mr. Junior home this mornin’.”

“Oh, Lord. Then we better get a move on. Skip, help me get Mr. Howard out to the car.”

“I’ll just pick him up and carry him. Then I’ll put the wheelchair in the trunk. Won’t that be easier?”

“Quicker, too,” I said, hurrying back to Mr. Howard’s room. “Let me speak to him a minute.”

He was sitting there already in his wheelchair, nodding off, with his thin white hair flopping down over his forehead.

“Mr. Howard, honey,” I said, squatting down by his side. “You getting a little rest before you bite the bullet again?”

He jerked his head up and gave me one of his sweet lopsided smiles, garbling about how happy he was to see me.

“Here, let me fix your hair.” I took a brush and a travel-sized can of hair spray out of my bag and put him to rights. “There. You’re as handsome as a groom ought to be. Skip’s here, you remember Skip from yesterday? He’s going to get you in the car, and when we get back, you’ll be a married man. Think you can stand it?” I grinned at him.

He nodded, his eyes sparkling, and, quick as a flash, his good hand reached for my breast. “No, you don’t,” I said, grabbing his hand. “You sure are sprightly this morning. And,” I leaned over and whispered in his ear, “dirty-minded.”

That just tickled him to death, because he liked to think he could do more than he really could. I always pretended that his groping around got me all hot and bothered, which made him feel like a whole man again, instead of just a half. That was the least I could do in exchange for wrapping me up in his name and his reputation.

I did get a sinking feeling about that time, though, thinking of how that name and reputation hadn’t stopped Roy and Harley Puckett the night before.

“Y’all ready, Etta Mae?” Skip said at the door. “We better go if you are.”

“Skip’s going with us,” I told Mr. Howard. “He’ll make it easier to get this over with before Valerie gets back.”

Skip scooped up Mr. Howard and headed for the car. I folded the wheelchair and carried it down the hall toward the kitchen.

“Wish us luck, Emmett,” I said. “When we get back, there’s going to be a new Mrs. Connard, Senior. And she’ll outrank Mrs. Connard, Junior.”

“All the luck in the world, Miss Etta,” Emmett said, smiling. “I be happy for you and Mr. Howard and for me, too. I too ole to be scroungin’ aroun’ for no new place to live, givin’ up my pension an’ all. You ain’t goin’ back on yo’ word, are you?”

“Not for all the tea in China,” I said. “Emmett, I’m counting on you. It’s going to be up to me and you—I mean, you and I—to see that Mr. Howard has a long and happy old age. Now, if Junior and Valerie get back before we do, don’t say a word about where we are, ’cause I don’t want them to take it out on you. Just wait till we get back and, with a marriage certificate in my hand, I’ll take on both of them.”

“I hope the Lord bless you, Miss Etta, for takin’ care of both us ole men. I have a wedding lunch ready when you get back.”

Skip settled Mr. Howard into the front seat of the car, then came back for the wheelchair, saying he’d stick it in the trunk. “Hurry up, Etta Mae. If we don’t get goin’, Mr. Connard’s gonna have a stroke.”

“Don’t say that!”

I followed him out to the car and waited while Skip got in the backseat, his knees sticking up practically in his face. We left, but I didn’t feel sure we were going to make it until we got out on the highway, still checking the rearview mirror for a blue-and-white Ford Windstar and sweeping the cars coming toward us for a little green Mercedes.

 • • • 

The Universal Harvest Church was about three miles off the Abbotsville Highway on North Ridge Road. It was a medium-sized brick building sitting in a grove of trees in a farming community. There was a white steeple laying out in the field beside it. They’d had a steeple fund going for several years and had finally gotten together enough to buy one, but not enough to pay for a crane to put it on top of the church.

“I’ll tell you,” I said to Mr. Howard and Skip, “if the Reverend Mr. Haliday’s not here, I’m going to kick myself. I should’ve called him and told him we were on our way. Even though I told him yesterday it might be this morning.”

“There’s a car parked over there by that side door,” Skip said. “Reckon it’s his?”

“Oh, thank goodness,” I said, turning into the graveled parking area and pulling up beside the old black Cadillac. “I bet it is, it looks like a preacher’s car. I’ll run in and let him know we’re here and ready to go. Skip, watch out for Mr. Howard while I’m gone, okay?”

“Take your time, Etta Mae,” Skip said. “I’m in no hurry.”

I rolled my eyes, and went to find the preacher.

“You need
two
witnesses,” the Reverend Haliday said. He stood in front of the pine podium from which he preached the Gospel every Sunday morning and every Wednesday night, wearing navy blue polyester Sansabelt trousers and a short-sleeved white shirt, open at the collar, that was thin enough to show the sleeveless undershirt underneath. He was a stout man, broader through the chest than anywhere else. He’d served in the Marines before being called to serve the Lord, and he still had the Marine Corps buzz cut to prove it. He was much admired by his hardscrabble congregation, because he would work with the best of them, pitching in at apple- or bean-picking time, saying he could pick souls for the Lord at the same time.

I sank down on the front pew, just done in with one more snag in getting this wedding over with. I
knew
we needed two witnesses. Of all people who should’ve known, it was me. I’d been through it twice before, but each time we’d either had friends with us or there’d been somebody at the magistrate’s office to stand up for us.

“Well, since we brought one with us,” I said, nodding at Skip, “I guess I thought there’d be somebody here who could help us out.”

The Reverend Haliday shook his head. “We’re just a country church,” he said. “We have a volunteer come into the office a couple of days a week, but today’s not one of ’em.” He felt sorry for us, I could tell, as he stood there with his Bible in his hand ready to do the job, if we’d done ours.

The reverend hadn’t turned a hair when I’d straightened him out about who the groom was. Like the woman at the Register of Deeds office, he’d at first thought Skip was the lucky man and Mr. Howard my father. That was one of the things I liked about the reverend, the times I’d attended his services. He took everything as it came, like whatever it was had been ordained. Nothing ever got away with him.

“Maybe you could come back about five o’clock,” he said, trying to be helpful. “People’ll be coming in then for prayer meetin’, and any of them’d be glad to stand up for you.”

Five o’clock, I thought, too late. Mr. Howard would be worn out by then, and Valerie and probably Junior, too, would be at his house to close the door in my face. If all three of them weren’t on the way to Raleigh by then.

I just shook my head, pretty close to tears by that time with the frustration of it all.

“Isn’t there somebody you could call to come on out?” the reverend asked. “I just hate to see your plans torn all to pieces like this.”

“No worse than me, Reverend,” I said. I looked at Mr. Howard, sitting there in his wheelchair looking spry and alert. Mornings were the best time for him. Skip stood by the pew I was sitting in, taking it all in.

“Why don’t you call Lurline?” he said.

“She wouldn’t do it.” I shook my head again, looking down at my lap at the smear of dirt on my pretty dress that hadn’t come out, in spite of my sponging with a wet towel. “She did everything she could to break us up. Besides,” I said, my heart thudding with a sudden remembrance, “I forgot to tell her I wouldn’t be in to work this morning. She’ll be so mad, she’d never help us.”

“Aw, I bet she would,” Skip said. “Won’t hurt to try, anyway. I’ll call her, if there’s a phone around here.”

“Okay,” I said, shrugging. “Might as well try, but I don’t have much hope. Call her at the office, that’s where she’ll be.”

Skip followed the reverend out of the sanctuary, leaving Mr. Howard and me alone. I looked around the quiet room with its cushionless pine pews and plain choir loft. An upright piano sat to one side, with neatly stacked hymnals on top. A wasp buzzed in a corner of the ceiling. It was nothing like the First Methodist Church in town, with its carpeted aisles and maroon pew cushions and carved altar rail. But it was a sanctified church, and I craved the blessings we’d get here on this marriage because I figured we’d need them.

Given the fact that nobody else was handing them out.

“I guess I didn’t think this out too good,” I said to Mr. Howard. “I’m real sorry to drag you around like this and then have everything fall through.”

He shook his head, and said something that I was too tired and too disappointed to try to figure out. He reached for my hand with his good one, giving it a squeeze to help my way-down feelings. I knew he was counting on me, since he was in no shape to help make any arrangements.

When you don’t have your health, you’re pretty well handicapped in all areas of life.

“Well, one good thing,” I said, trying to buck myself up. “I’m no quitter. If we don’t get it done today, I’ll think of something else. Our license is good for sixty days, and if Junior moves you away, well, I’ll just turn Raleigh inside out till I find you. So I don’t want you to lose heart. I’m going to be Mrs. Howard Connard, Senior, if it kills me.”

 • • • 

We sat there holding hands in the quiet church, waiting to see if Lurline would put aside her plans for my life and find it in her heart to come to our rescue.

“She’s comin’,” Skip called, a big grin on his face, as he and the reverend came back into the sanctuary.

My heart leaped up. “She is?” I couldn’t believe it. “What’d she say?”

“She didn’t much want to at first. Said it turned her stomach—uh-oh, sorry,” he said with a glance at Mr. Howard, who didn’t seem to mind. “But she said okay, after I told her that I had other plans that didn’t have another marriage in them. I don’t mean to hurt your feelings, Etta Mae, but I been thinkin’ about what you said, an’ you’re right that we had our chance an’ it didn’t work out. So I want you to marry whoever you want to. That’s what I told her, and she said she’d do it, but she wouldn’t like it.”

“I don’t care whether she likes it or not, if she’ll just come on. When will she be here?”

“She’s on her way. Ten, maybe fifteen minutes.”

I sagged against the pew in relief. Maybe it’d all work out, after all.

“Y’all just make yourselves at home while you wait,” the reverend said, as he took a hymnal from the top of the piano. “I’ll just use this time to select the hymns for prayer meeting tonight, so I’ll be right here when you’re ready.”

 • • • 

After the longest fifteen minutes of my life had passed, a car door slammed and we all looked up to see Lurline come in the main door of the church, swishing her prissy self down the aisle. She wore one of her white nylon uniforms and white cork-soled wedgies. Slinging her large crocheted bag over her shoulder, she folded her sunglasses and stuck them in it.

“I don’t like this one little bit,” she announced as she got to the altar, “but what’re friends for but to help when they’re needed?”

“Oh, Lurline,” I said, jumping up to hug her. “I just thank you so much. I’ll never forget it.”

“See that you don’t,” she snapped. She ran her critcal eyes over Skip and me, taking note of our stained and dirty clothes, Skip’s unshaven face, and my lack of cosmetic enhancements. “You two look like something the cat drug in,” she said. Then, turning to the reverend, she went on, “Let’s get this show on the road. I have a business to run.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, straightening up like most people did when Lurline gave orders. “Now, let’s bring the wedding party all up here together, right around me.”

“Lurline,” I whispered as we moved toward the altar rail, “I guess I won’t be in to work today.”

“Do tell,” she said, giving me a cold eye.

Mr. Howard said something, holding out his good hand to Skip. “He wants to stand up, bless his heart,” I said. “Skip, would you mind helping him? He can lean on me. Here, put his bad side next to me.”

We got that done, and I was gratified that Mr. Howard wanted to show that he had some manly strength left by standing by my side for the ceremony.

“Do we have a ring?” the reverend asked.

I sagged, almost bringing both Mr. Howard and myself to our knees. One more thing I’d forgotten.

“It’s not necessary,” the reverend quickly said. “I just asked to know what part of the ceremony to leave out.”

I didn’t want any part left out. I wanted the whole works, but you don’t always get what you want when you have to do everything yourself.

“Ring,” Mr. Howard said, although it sounded like “whrin.” He stuffed his good hand in his suit coat pocket and pulled out a ring with enough diamonds on it to bug my eyes out.

“Man alive!” Skip said, staring at it.

“Now that’s a ring,” the reverend said, admiring it as Mr. Howard handed it to him.

“Why,” Lurline said, sharp and critical like she always was about anything that wasn’t her idea, “it’s a
dinner
ring.”

“I don’t care what it is,” I declared, knowing in my heart that Mr. Howard had probably raided the first Mrs. Howard Connard, Senior’s jewelry box. And why not? I thought. He was in no condition to go buy something especially for me, and I didn’t mind a secondhand one at all. And
she
certainly couldn’t use it. Besides, it was the thought that counted.

“It’s beautiful, you ole sweet thing, you,” I said, kissing him on the cheek, and trying to figure out why I could be so happy to finally be getting my wish to marry him, while some deep, mournful dread was welling up so bad in my insides that I thought it was clouding up to rain all over the world.

The reverend cleared his throat. “Dearly beloved,” he said, and in no time at all I was the second Mrs. Howard Connard, Senior, in spite of the way my insides felt.