Making Waves (18 page)

And now this. Mama sent for me right after Miss Maudie Ferguson's funeral. I swear, I'm going to put in a telephone for Mama and Daddy if it's the last thing I ever do! Looks like Mama would realize how humiliated I feel when she sends Daddy to town for me. Last time she did was when they needed a ride to Tuscaloosa to get Granny's dentures fixed. It's always something.

But this time, we had just got in from the funeral, and there I was in my new silk suit Hamilton bought me at Gayfer's, about to burn up it was so blamed hot, but not wanting to change clothes yet. I'd fixed some iced tea for me and Miss Opal and Miss Frances Martha. I sliced a lemon real thin and put the whole thing in the pitcher of tea—a whole lemon and about two cups of sugar. Then I poured it in those pretty long-stemmed crystal glasses that belonged to Hamilton's grandmother. Oh, my, it looked and tasted good! I couldn't even drink mine for looking at it, whirling that tiny little glass stem around and around.

I convinced Miss Opal and Miss Frances Martha that we ought to sit out on the side porch a spell. I could tell that neither one of them wanted to, but they did anyhow. Hamilton's mother seems like she really likes me and tries to please me, which kind of surprised me. When we first married, I wasn't sure how she'd take to me, me being slightly older than Hamilton.

Miss Opal's difficult for me to understand, tell you the truth. She'd been ill as a hornet since we got home, saying that she like to have died at the funeral, it was so hot, and that the dress she wore had shrunk, that she knew better than to trust Annie Lou to wash it in Woolite. I had to bite my tongue to keep from telling her she'd put on a lot of weight lately. I can't understand a woman in her position having such an attitude, frankly. I mean, the woman has everything in the world, and all she does is complain. She stays on to poor old Miss Frances Martha all the time, telling her she's a crazy old bessie-bug who ought to be committed to Bryce's, and as soon as Mr. Harris dies, that's exactly where she's going. She fusses about Mr. Harris—I mean Daddy Clark—she goes on about Daddy Clark being such a tightwad. Except that's not the way she says it, but I was raised better than to use words like that myself.

And then she goes on all the time about how bored she is, so what does she do—goes over to the country club in Mt. Zion and plays bridge all day.

What a waste of time! I just cannot see it myself. She could go to the mall in Tuscaloosa or Columbus anytime she wants to, buy anything she wants; how can she be bored enough to play card games? Or she could go all the way to Birmingham to shop. They've got the most malls over there that you've ever seen! Hamilton took me to the new Galleria after we got back from our wedding trip to Gulf Shores. Lord, I'd never seen anything like the Galleria in my life! He promised to take me back soon to get my fall wardrobe. But Miss Opal won't go—she says it's too big, got too many stores, and it makes her feet hurt to even think about it. If that don't beat all!

So, true to form, Miss Opal was sitting out on the porch griping about the heat and Daddy Clark being too stingy to air-condition the house, when who drove up in that awful old pickup of his but Daddy. You could hear the truck rattling all the way down the street. I was so humiliated I could die, especially today with all the people in town for the funeral. Then Daddy got out, slamming the door, and started up the walk to the house, and I really was embarrassed. Why did he have to wear his overalls to town today of all days? Usually Daddy will at least put on a nice sports shirt and tie when he comes into town, as befitting a deacon of the church. Something must be up for him to come off looking like that.

Miss Opal was about to break her neck looking, then she sank back into the lounge chair.

“I believe that's your Daddy looking for you, Ellis. Tell him to come on in and get some tea.”

I met him on the front steps and made him come on the porch with us, though he didn't want to, I could tell. He hated to come see me at the Clark house. I was bound and determined not to let Hamilton's mama see me be rude to Daddy though, no matter how aggravated I felt. He took off his hat and spoke briefly to Miss Opal and Miss Frances Martha without raising his eyes.

“Daddy, we're just sitting out here having a glass of tea. Let me get you some,” I said to him because I wanted him to see those pretty crystal glasses. But he shook his head and twisted the battered old straw hat in his hand, the one he wears in the field.

Then Miss Opal spoke up, trying to be polite, I reckon, but I wisht she'd left it alone, because there's no telling what Daddy will say, and he uses the worst grammar. That's one of the main things I straightened out about myself when I went off to college, because I realized nothing shows up your ignorance like poor grammar.

“Mr. Rountree, would you rather have a Coke or something?” Miss Opal asked, pulling her big rear end out of the lounge chair and almost tipping over.

Daddy swallowed nervously, then looked down at the hat in his hands.

“Well, ma'am, if it ain't too much trouble …”

“No trouble at all. I'm fixing to go in myself and let y'all visit, but I'm sure Frances Martha will fix it for you.”

Sure enough, Miss Frances Martha jumped up, too. She'd been sitting in the swing looking at a cookbook.

“If y'all got one, I'd be much obliged fer a Grapico,” Daddy said.

Now that aggravated the stew out of me. How could Daddy ask for a Grapico when he could have lemon tea in a crystal glass? And he'd drink it right out of the bottle, too, I knew. But I wasn't about to say anything and let them think I was disrespectful to my parents, so I kept my mouth shut. Miss Frances Martha went off into the kitchen nice as you please to get him a Grapico. I knew that we had some in the refrigerator because Annie Lou likes them, too. Naturally.

I was also aggravated with Daddy because he didn't say a blooming thing to Miss Opal and Miss Frances Martha while they were still out there on the porch. When she came back with the Grapico, Miss Frances Martha tried to talk to him about Miss Maudie's funeral; she loves funerals better'n anyone, but no. He wouldn't say a blame thing, just looked down at his shoes and nodded. Him and Mama both are the timidest things I've ever seen in my life, but especially around Hamilton's people.

They're not a thing like me. When I was a little girl, I used to make up stories about being adopted, since I was so different than the rest of my family. Outgoing, that's what I am. I can talk to anybody about anything. I stood there after the funeral today and talked to the preacher's wife like I'd known her all my life. We talked about that article in the Zion County Herald last week, the one about all the chickens in the county dying from heat prostration. That's what I call stimulating conversation. And it paid off, too. Mrs. Junkin invited me to come to the Study Club meeting at her house next Thursday night. Every month they read a different book, and the librarian gives a review on it. I just can't wait. This month the book is
Decorating with Decoupage: The Elegant Touch
.

As it turned out, I was grateful Miss Opal and Miss Frances Martha went back into the house for their afternoon nap and left me and Daddy alone on the porch. I would have died if they heard what he came to tell me about Glenda.

“That's why I come, Ellis,” Daddy told me after they left. “Your mama's in bed sick and done took two of her heart pills. She took to bed as soon as Glenda up and quit her job and rode off with that thar Dink Odom.”

I was about to get a migraine myself. At first, I didn't understand what Daddy was so upset about. About some things, I'm as slow as Miss Frances Martha!

“But that ain't—isn't nothing to get Mama sick about, Daddy,” I said. “I imagine Zippy Mart pays better than Kiddie World. And it's over by the river, so they do lots of business there. I for one can't fault Glenda for trying to better herself.”

Then I thought of something. “Just how's she going to get to work?”

Mama and Daddy're so old-timey they don't believe in girls having cars, or wearing makeup, or anything like that. When I finished high school and started working at the First Baptist Church in town, Daddy drove me in and picked me up every single day, in that rattley old pickup. Every day for years, that is, until I decided to change my life.

I'd been saving up my money, since I didn't really have anything to spend it on, so the first thing I did was get me a car. I bought the Baptist preacher's wife's little Ford Escort when she got herself a new LTD. I tell you, getting that little blue Escort changed me. I decided that since I finally had my own car, I could go to business college in Columbus, like I'd always wanted to do. Me, in college! The beginning of a new life for me. I set me some goals and stuck with them, and my whole life has changed. Maybe Glenda had decided to do the same.

“That's jest it,” Daddy said, “whut I'm trying to tell you. She's ridin' to work now with Dink Odom. He done picked her up this morning. And you know our place is way outta his way.”

“How does Glenda even know Dinky?” I suddenly wondered. People assume everybody in a small town knows everybody else, but there are a lot of folks in Clarksville I don't know, bound to be even more for Glenda, living way out in the country.

“He brangs his young'uns to the daycare center whur she worked. So she knows him real good, I reckon,” Daddy said.

I saw then that Daddy was getting real nervous. He's a little bitty man, skinny as can be, and one way you can tell he's upset is when his Adam's apple starts bobbling around in his scrawny neck. The other way is his eyes. Daddy has watery blue eyes that have always been crossed, but especially if he gets upset. I've never thought they were all that bad myself, but Hamilton claims Daddy can stand in the middle of the week and see both Sundays. He's always trying to get me to take him to the eye foundation in Birmingham.

I sighed out loud, since no one was around. My sick headache was intensifying.

“Now, Daddy, I still don't see why y'all should be so upset. Glenda's almost twenty-one years old. And there's nothing wrong with her working for Dinky Odom, really. I mean, he's kind of a redneck, but he ain't—isn't—so bad.”

“But, Ellis,” he said. Daddy named me after the preacher that saved him, so he speaks my name with lots of reverence. “Glenda didn't even tell anyone 'bout this! Tammie drove up to git her fer work this morning, and she runs out and tells Tammie she done quit. Then that Dink feller comes driving up, and she tells us she's gonna be workin' fer him at the Zippy Mart from now on. 'Cept he can't afford to pay her no full wages, so she done give up a regular job fer part-time work!” Daddy shook his head in disbelief. Daddy has always made his living doing odd carpentry jobs and farming, never having held down a full-time job in his life.

Well, I had to admit, it sure didn't sound like something respectful little Glenda would do. I didn't know what to make of it.

Then Daddy looked all around the porch to make sure no one was listening. One of his eyes looked at me and the other over my shoulder as he whispered to me, “Ellis, it ain't jest that Glenda's acting peculiar sudden-like, no, ma'am. It's worse than that. That thar Dink Odom is
divorced
.”

Well, that did it. I got a full-blown headache then. I knew it'd do no good to try and convince Daddy that lots of people were divorced nowadays; it was totally against his religion. And I knew with a swift pain over my eyes that Daddy Clark would feel the same, him being a religious fanatic, too, bad as Daddy in his own way. I'd heard him go on and on many a time about the Decline of the American Way, and how folks getting divorces was the reason. I can remember when I felt that way, too, before I went off to college and broadened my outlook on life. Ever since then, I changed how I felt about a lot of Mama and Daddy's ideas, but it wouldn't do any good to tell them. Here I was, trying to make the best possible impression on Hamilton's people, and now this. I could just choke Glenda.

It ended up with me getting rid of Daddy by promising to ride over to the Zippy Mart and talk to Glenda. I sure dreaded it. It was almost four o'clock in the afternoon, and I'd missed my nap. Now I had a headache instead. I planned a lovely summer dinner tonight of chicken salad on a cantalope half, which I looked forward to all day. Miss Frances Martha made some poppy-seed rolls from her Bisquick this morning, and it was going to be a special supper. Well, it would just have to wait until I got back. Daddy Clark wouldn't like that; he likes to eat right on schedule, and Hamilton wouldn't like it because he wants his wife to be here when he gets home from work. But I couldn't help it. Under the circumstances, I didn't know what else I could do. I declare! Family obligations can be so tiresome.

The Zippy Mart that Dink Odom runs is the one over by the Black Warrior River, off the highway that goes to Mt. Zion. Glenda and me never got to go to the river like other kids, because Mama and Daddy don't believe in it. Our preacher even preached against the sins of the river one Sunday when I was a little girl. The reason is, a lot of high school kids go over there all the time and drink and do all sorts of bad things. Hamilton went down there a lot in his younger days, before he met me and settled down.

I'd never been to the river myself until I got my little Escort, then I drove myself out there big as you please and looked around. At first I was scared to even get out of the car. I reckon something in me believed the devil himself would jump out of that dark swirling water and get me. But in a few minutes I got out, and I stood on the steep bank of the river looking down. The water was a dark autumn green, and you could see rocks and sticks and fish underneath it, around the edge. The trees were changing colors, and in places the golds and reds of the woods around the river were reflected in the deep dark water.