Maggie Sweet (9 page)

That
night I drove to Winn-Dixie to pick up more Windex, Murphy Oil Soap, and paste wax for the spring cleaning. It was the first time I’d left the house in days so I was kind of jumpy anyway. To make matters worse, I was barely through the door when I saw Dreama Nims pushing her grocery cart past the dog food aisle.

Since Dreama was the last person I wanted to see, I ducked behind a paper towel display ’til she went on to the dairy lane.

When I saw her muumuu disappear around the corner, I slipped up the cleaning-supply aisle, grabbed what I needed, and headed for the meat department to hide out ’til the coast was clear.

Darting to the back of the store, I saw a blond, spiked-haired woman in a yellow cowgirl suit, hugging a tall, dark-haired man near the T-bone steaks.

Lordhavemercy! It was Mary Price and Jerry. I froze. But Mary Price saw me and waved.

She came toward me. “I was just fixing to call you. Oh, Maggie, the most amazing thing in the world happened.
You tell her, Jerry. I can’t talk—I’m as jumpy as a cockroach in a hot skillet!”

Jerry smiled. “Should I start at the beginning or just blurt it out?”

“Well, Lord, Jerry, I could blurt it out. I want you to start at the beginning, complete with the drum rolls.”

“All right. Here goes. It all started after Mary Price left your house this morning. She drove straight to Charlotte and found herself a talent agent—.”

“—Not just any talent agent,” Mary Price interrupted. “The best talent agent in the entire Southeast! But go ahead, Jerry.”

Jerry laughed. “Well, the agent took one look at her yellow cowgirl suit and yellow hair and the poor woman was—”

“—She was overcome! Completely overcome,” Mary Price said, her eyes as big as soup tureens. “The next thing I knew she was listening to my tape, changing Hoyt’s and my name to The Traveling Bumbaloughs, and by three o’clock we had a major audition.”

“An audition. Oh, Mary Price, that’s wonderful!” I said.

“But it gets better. Oh, Maggie Sweet, we got the job! Saturday night we’ll be one of the featured acts at Palomino Joe’s!”

“I’ve heard about Palomino Joe’s. They’ve got this big sawdust-covered floor for dancing, plank tables, pitchers of beer,” Jerry filled in.

“And it’s not just pickup bands, either. Vince and George and Charlie have all been through there and now
we’re
the featured act! We’ve only got one set, but if they
like us there’s no telling. And I aim to see that they like us,” Mary Price said.

“You may touch her now,” Jerry said. “’Course you’ll have to get in line for autographs.”

Mary Price took a deep stagy bow, then jumped up and spun around. “Oh, Maggie, I can’t believe it! It’s starting!”

Just then Hoyt came up the aisle carrying a bottle of champagne. When he saw us, he grinned, flung his arms around all of us, and hugged us tight.

“Oh, Lord!” I said, hanging onto them for dear life. They were my childhood, my history, my past—Mary Price and Hoyt, Maggie Sweet and Jerry, together 4-ever. I’d come home.

I started to cry.

Mary Price pulled away, “Lord, Maggie, don’t. You’ll have me bawling in a minute. We need to be dancing, not having a big old bawling session here in the Winn-Dixie.”

“I guess I’m like your agent—completely overcome,” I said, laughing through my tears.

Then Hoyt grabbed Mary Price and Jerry grabbed me and the four of us did a smooth combination line dance, Texas two-step through the meat aisle.

Jerry held me tight. “Maggie Sweet, it’s so good to be back. I wouldn’t have missed this for anything in the world!”

That’s when Dreama Nims nabbed us, laughing and dancing in the meat aisle at the Winn-Dixie.

Dancing
with Jerry at the Winn-Dixie had brought me back to life. But over the next few days I wondered if he’d saved my life or ruined it.

Tuesday morning, I lost my simple mind and drove past the city limits sign, the That’lldu, the Jesus-or-Hell bridge, past the Dinglers’ house, the stand of loblolly pines, Belews Pond and wound up on Chatham Road.

Thank goodness, Jerry wasn’t home. I don’t know what would have happened if he’d been there. Would I have flung myself into his arms, lived out my schoolgirl dreams? Made a fool of myself? Wrecked everyone’s lives?

It was such a close call that when I got back home, I was still shaking. Because while my heart was buckling at the knees, my head said, “For goodness sake, Maggie, you’re thirty-eight, not eighteen. The time for dancing in the aisles is over.”

While my heart said, “He’s the one for you,” my head said, “Your family’s counting on you. You’re a good Methodist girl from Poplar Grove, North Carolina. You can’t change that. You can’t go back on your raising.”

But spring cleaning, I’d catch myself line-dancing the
oil soap over the mahogany paneling, shagging the velvet drapes on down to the dry cleaners, Western-swinging the steam cleaner over the rugs, and scrubbing the floors to George Strait’s “Second Chance.”

When Mary Price called, I was oil-soaping the kitchen cupboards. “I’ve reserved a big table up front for my friends at Palomino Joe’s Saturday night,” she said.

This surprised me so, I didn’t say anything.

“Maggie, are you still there? You are planning to go, aren’t you?”

“Of course I’ll be there. I wouldn’t miss it for anything in the world,” I said, not missing a beat. But after we hung up, I realized I hadn’t even thought about going to the opening. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to go. I was just so out of the habit of going anywhere, it never came to me to think that I
could
go. I’d never gone to see her at the That’lldu. Steven had had a hissy fit the one time I mentioned it, so I dropped it. But Palomino Joe’s was the biggest thing that had ever happened to Mary Price. I couldn’t let her down again.

Later, it hit me, Jerry would probably be at Palomino Joe’s, too. Just thinking about that made the spring cleaning go completely out of my head. I’d pick up the bottle of Windex and suddenly it was time to start supper. At night I’d wake up thinking I was about to smother. Sometimes it got so bad, I’d have to get up and walk the floors. Other nights, I’d just lie awake for hours, listening to the strange pounding of my heart. Every heartbeat seemed to say, “This is
it
, Maggie Sweet, this is your life. This is
it
, Maggie Sweet, this is your
real
life.

Thursday it came to me that with my feelings so stirred
up over Jerry, I had to make Steven go to Palomino Joe’s with me. I needed him glued to my side so no one could forget, even for a minute, that I had a husband—that I was a decent married woman.

That evening, the minute my courage was up, I barged into the den and blurted, “Steven, why can’t we ever go out to someplace fun?”

He looked at me like my hair had turned green, and said what he always said, “You always want to do something we can’t afford.”

I started to remind him about the cemetery plots he’d bought, without a word to me, but I didn’t have the energy. “You never once took me to see Hoyt and Mary Price at the That’lldu. Now they’ve had a big break. They’re the featured act at Palomino Joe’s Saturday and I want to go.”

Steven snorted. “So that’s it. You know I wouldn’t set foot in a place like that. It’s a waste of time and money. Besides, I don’t even like country-western music.”

I started to say, I don’t like historical meetings, tombstone rubbings, fund-raising banquets, or mahogany paneling. But I didn’t say anything. I just stared at him.

He tried to go back to the papers he was grading, but when he saw I wasn’t going anywhere, he sighed, took off his glasses, and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “What’s the matter with you? You’re in the strangest mood lately. I heard you out there talking to yourself.”

“I wasn’t talking, I was singing. I use to sing all the time. Listen, Steven, Mary Price and Hoyt are my friends and Palomino Joe’s is completely respectable.”

Steven just rolled his eyes and sighed.

“If it was Theo Bloodworth asking, you’d go in a heartbeat,” I rushed on. “Now it’s
my
friends. I want to go. We could have fun. Lord, Steven, don’t you ever want to do something fun? Does life always have to be the same old same old?”

“Life
is
the same old same old. I thought you knew that by now. We’re not going and that’s all there is to that. Next thing you’d want a new outfit; the expense would go on and on. Besides, I’m tired. I plan to rest on Saturday,” he said.

“But this is only Thursday. The opening’s not ’til Saturday. How can you plan to be tired in
advance
?”

He put his glasses back on and rattled his papers. “I can’t talk to you when you get like this. I
always
rest on Saturday. You know that. That’s just how I am. Now if you don’t mind, I’ve got work to do.” Then he went back to his papers like everything was settled.

I stood there for a minute watching him, feeling all dead inside. Steven was only forty-eight years old, but he was the oldest man I knew.

When I got back to the kitchen, I thought,
well, you just rest then, Steven. But just because you want to lie down and die doesn’t mean I have to lie down next to you.

Then I picked up the phone.

“Mary Price, do I have to wear a cowgirl suit Saturday night or can I dress like a normal person?”

Steven
wasn’t speaking to me. When he saw I was going to Palomino Joe’s with or without him, he said, “I don’t like the way you’re acting. I’ve let you keep your friends, but I won’t have you acting cheap.” Then he went into the den and slammed the door.

After that he didn’t say a word either to me or the girls. He stomped around the house in a huff, slamming doors, glaring at everyone. On Friday I cooked from the menu and tried to pretend everything was fine. Steven sat through our meals with his face and heart like stone, and the girls’ eyes darted back and forth between us.

Saturday morning he left the house early without a word to anyone about where he was going or when he’d be back.

The silence shouldn’t have bothered me. I should have been an expert at Steven not speaking. But the tension in the house had my nerves torn to pieces.

Saturday, I almost called Mary Price a dozen times to cancel.

All morning, I brooded around the house. But that afternoon I went upstairs and Dippity-Do’d my hair straight up
for courage. I was in the bathroom, staring into the mirror, when Amy strolled in. She didn’t seem to notice me. She picked up a hairbrush and started flipping the ends of her hair. Then all at once her eyes went wide.

“For heaven’s sake, Mama! It’s bad enough to have a sister who thinks she’s Sacagawea. Now my own mother thinks she’s Tina Turner.”

“Do you think this hairdo’s all right for Palomino Joe’s tonight?”

She stared at me. “You, going to Palomino Joe’s? What for?”

“To watch Mary Price and Hoyt perform.”

“Honestly, Mother. Only rednecks and redneck wannabes go the Palomino.”

“You sound like a big old snob when you talk like that, Amy.”

She sniffed. “I can’t believe you talked Daddy into taking you.”

“Daddy’s not going.”

“You mean you’re going without him?”

“Daddy doesn’t want to go. But Mary Price and Hoyt are the featured act. I think I should be there.”

“I can’t believe it. I think it’s bizarre. Mrs. Bumbalough strutting around town in a cowgirl suit and now you. Why, it’s positively bizarre. Why can’t you be like other mothers? What if someone sees you?”

“Everyone will see me! The whole town’s going, including mothers! Now watch how you talk to me. I’m still your mother.”

“A mother who goes to bars. Dances with rednecks. I can’t believe you’d do anything that low.” She threw the
hairbrush into the sink and ran out of the bathroom and down the stairs.

I ran after her. I wanted to pinch her head off. “Amy, come back here! I’m not through with you!”

She didn’t slow down, just looked over her shoulder and shouted, “I’m the one that’s through! I can’t stand it! The minute I graduate I’m moving in with Grandmother Presson.”

After she left I went upstairs and threw myself on my bed. I’d been so excited about feeling alive again. But the minute I was singing around the house, looking forward to something, Steven stopped speaking to me and Amy started threatening to leave home.

From the bed I could see my reflection in the dresser mirror. My hair was sticking straight up. A few minutes ago it’d given me courage. Now I felt like a fool. Maybe Steven and Amy were right. Maybe I was a silly middle-aged woman trying to look young. I frowned at my reflection, mashed my hair flat. Me, going to Palomino Joe’s, what for? Was it really to see the Bumbaloughs or just an excuse to see Jerry again? Maybe I was a thirty-eight-year-old woman looking for romance and excitement, when the time for romance and excitement was over.

I went downstairs, picked up the phone and called Mary Price, but no one answered.

Ten minutes later she knocked on the door.

“I know I’m hours early, but I’m too wound up to wait. Can you do my hair now?”

We went to the kitchen and I poured two cups of coffee. “I tried to call you. Would you…be mad…if I didn’t go tonight?”

She just looked at me. “Well, Lord, Maggie. I can’t believe it! I thought you wanted to go. You’ve said so all week.”

I had hurt her feelings, the last thing I’d wanted to do. “Mary Price, I’m sorry. I want to go. I do. It’s just…Steven’s in a snit, he hasn’t spoken to me in two days. Then this morning, Amy had a fit and ran out of the house.”

“Is that all?” she said, lighting a Virginia Slim.

“Isn’t that enough?”

“So Steven’s mad. So what? Hoyt’s mad at me half the time and the sun still comes up in the morning. Besides, teenagers are supposed to pitch fits. That’s their job. ’Course I have to admit Amy’s
extra
good at her job. But you can’t let them get away with it.”

“It’s just…I hate when people get mad at me.”

“Lord, Maggie. You’ve spent your whole life letting everyone tell you what to do. No offense, honey, but you even let your daddy tell you how to live your life and the Lord and everyone else knows that Smilin’ Jack Sweet doesn’t have the sense God gave a goose.”

Before I could defend Daddy she went on. “’Course you were only a child then, so I’ll make some allowances. But you’re grown now. Why, before I’d let my husband or child or anyone tell me what to do I’d dye my hair green and go braless to the Winn-Dixie. Just ask Hoyt Bumbalough if I wouldn’t. I mean, what’s Amy going to do about it? What’s Steven going to do? Hit you? Chain you up in the basement? Thousands of women go out without their husbands every night of the week.”

“It’s not like that. Steven’s a good man. He’d never hit me. It’s just when he goes around not speaking, it makes me feel like pure crud.”

She ground out her cigarette, then looked me in the eye. “If he’s such a good man he wouldn’t make you feel like crud over nothing. Just because he’s not a criminal doesn’t make him a good man.”

“Well, for goodness sake, Mary Price,” I said, gasping. Her logic always surprised me, spun my head around. I’d always placed Steven above me. He was the grown-up, I was the child. He gave the orders; I obeyed. But Mary Price wasn’t the least impressed with Steven. She just saw him as another spoiled, bossy man. Why, if I’d said much more, she’d have met him at the door with a hickory switch.

“There’s more to life than keeping your head down and cooking from the menu in hopes your husband’ll do you the honor of speaking to you. He’s just pouting like a spoiled child. He’s had his way so long he thinks it’s his due. But this is America, Maggie. Lincoln freed the slaves. Tell Steven the next time he’s at one of his historical meetings to look that up in his Emancipation Proclamation.”

I laughed. Already I felt better. Then I thought about Jerry.

“Mary Price, I’m so mixed up. I just…I’m scared to death to see Jerry again,” I said, avoiding her eyes.

She hesitated. “I wondered about that. I saw the way you two looked at each other the other day.”

“You
saw
it?”

“Shoot! Even Hoyt saw it. And he doesn’t notice anything. After you all left, he said, ‘Mary Price, I’d die a happy man if you ever once looked at me like Maggie looked at Jerry. Why, she was lit up like Christmas.’”

“Oh, Lord, I’m doomed. What am I gonna do?” I wailed.

“You gotta do what you gotta do. But if it helps at all,
Jerry won’t be there tonight. His house in Jacksonville sold and he had to make a last-minute trip down to Florida for the closing. Go tonight. Get your mind off your worries. But I’ll tell you what, if a man ever looked at me like Jerry Roberts looks at you, I’d go to hell and face the devil before I walked away from it.”

We sat there awhile, not saying anything. Finally Mary Price sighed and said, “Now let’s do my hair, then we’ll figure out what you’re gonna wear to the opening.”

After finishing her hair, we went upstairs and looked in my closet. She took one look and said, “Jumping Jesus, it looks like Minnie Pearl’s closet.”

“Not everyone thinks cowgirl outfits are the height of fashion,” I said.

“Sad but true,” she said, shaking her head. “Wear the jeans you wore to my house. They fit great. With boots and a scarf you’ll be fine.”

“But I don’t have boots,” I said.

“You’re kidding! What do you have?” she asked.

“Kmart sneakers and my good beige pumps.”

“Lordymercy, that’s pitiful. Try these,” she said, kicking off her own boots.

Five minutes later I was dressed in jeans, a bright T, and Mary Price’s boots.

Just then Jill, who’d come home while I was doing Mary Price’s hair, peeked in the door. “What are you all doing? I could hear you laughing all the way downstairs.”

“I’m doing a makeover on your mama. She’s going to the Palomino tonight and she’s gotta look good.”

“
Mama! Going to the Palomino!
”

“If you’ve come to yell at me you’ll have to get in line,” I snapped.

“Kick butt.”

“What?”

“Kick butt! I wondered when you’d get a bellyful of the dead-relatives routine.”

Mary Price gave me her I-told-you-you-just-had-to-stand-up-to-them look.

I wanted to say,
Jill’s easy. But, you couldn’t convince Steven and Amy in a lifetime.

Ten minutes later I’d painted up, redone my hair, and Jill had loaned me an Indian print vest and turquoise earrings.

Mary Price dragged me to the mirror. “Lord, girl. I’ll have to say you clean up good. I think we’re ready for Palomino Joe’s. I just wonder if Palomino Joe’s is ready for us.”

I smiled at my reflection. An hour earlier I’d felt lower than a well. Now I felt great. “Thanks,” I said, turning around to admire my new look. “But it should’ve been me helping you get ready for
your
big night.”

“But I
am
ready, Maggie. I’ve been ready for years.”

“And now I’m ready, too,” I said with feeling. “But I want you to promise me something. If you all see me wallowing in nerves and self-pity again, promise you’ll shoot me—put me out of my misery.”

“You know I’d do anything for you, Maggie,” Mary Price said, grinning at me in the mirror.