The Wedding Gift (11 page)

Jessie paused for
breath,getting ready to start again, but I cut her right off by
putting my arms around her and telling her that she was the one
good thing still left in my life, and that I loved her more than
anything in this world. That shut her up but good! Jessie can’t
take stuff like that; it broke her up a little bit too, because she
pulled away all rough like and in this gravel voice she just told
me “
Damn straight, and don’t you ever
forget it
.” Then we got down to the
business of me telling her what everyone had decided about my
future.

Jessie said it sounded
awful and horrible both to her, but she said she guessed that if I
could stick it out for a couple of years, then “
them ugly ass Willets would give me a shitload of money to
divorce George and let them keep his mutant baby
.”

I had not previously
considered this aspect of the situation, but it did sound exactly
like something Miz Willets might do after all. And who knew, maybe
by then I would have some ideas of what I wanted to do with the
rest of my life, or even better, maybe Donny would get a divorce
too … Carlene being such trash and all, and then …well … yeah,
anyway, I thought what Jessie said sounded fine. I told her hell
yeah, that might work out real good and meanwhile would she be my
maid of honor? She said hell yeah, but only if she could wear
black, and I told her she could wear black leather if she wanted
to. Jessie said she might just do that so as to make Miz Willets
shit herself. We were both laughing by then, and the ugly day I’d
lived through before seemed like it all happened a million years
ago, or to someone else.

I was just getting ready to
tell her how Muffin was now apparently possessed by some laughing
demon which was living in our upstairs hallway, when Jessie cut me
off and pointed over my shoulder.

“
What the hell, Leeann?
Look at that. The Willets done parked their hearse at the curb!
Shoot, I think Miz Willets must have decided to have ya’ll
kidnapped and buried so as not to face the disgrace of having such
white trash as yourself in her fine ass family
.”

I punched her in the
shoulder and asked who she was calling white trash? But shoot,
Jessie was right. There was the Willets Petroleum limo just sitting
there at the curb. The limo was attracting no small amount of
notice, I can tell you, and kids were already pointing and staring
when, what the hell,out gets George, big as life, wearing a
freaking tuxedo at eleven a.m. in front of George Willets High. Oh
hell, he looked like an awful fool in that suit and, of course, his
pants were too short. I liked to have died of embarrassment. Then
Lurlene and Britney had to wander over all curious to take in the
show, nasty things. Lurlene hollered out in her girlish voice,
which sounds just like the bell at pig feeding time
“
What’s going on? Is that George Willets?
What’s he doin’ here?
”

Jessie, being in usual
form, answered her in real innocent voice “
Hell no, girls, that there’s old George Bush himself. I think
he’s here to ask Leeann to be his next vice president. Why, I’m
almost for sure he is, what with Dick Cheney done having run off
with Halle Berry
.” They just rolled their
eyes at her, which is somewhat of a surprise when you think about
it, as they are both certainly dumb enough to have believed Jessie.
Anyways, the upshot of my story is that we was all standing there
gaping at George like the fools we were.

George was real nervous, I
could tell. His face was bright red. I suppose to be fair that it
was real embarrassing for him to have to walk up in front of
everyone and their brother like that, dressed in a tuxedo and
everything. But, to be strictly honest, all I could think was that
I wished his pants weren’t too short, and I also wished that he had
picked somewhere else to do this to me.

But see now, it’s just like
that saying, “what a difference a day makes”, or, in my case, Lord
above, what a difference three minutes could make, because when
George made it up to where I was standing, he got down on his
knees, which I hated, and then all rushed like, he said
“
Leeann, will you marry me? Here, this is
for you
.”

He shoved this blue leather
box in my hand. I opened it and, hell, I don’t know with all the
screaming - me, Jessie, Lurlene, Britney, and old Miss Taylor, our
principal who had come outside to see what all the fuss was about -
which of us was the loudest. It was the biggest, and I mean the
biggest, damn diamond anyone had ever seen in their whole lives.
The diamond George gave me that morning well, shoot, it made Miz
Willets' boulder look like a damn pebble. I did not know then, but
I do now, that my diamond was ten and one half carats; total cost
four hundred and sixty thousand dollars, cash American!

Well when I saw that ring,
all my feelings of indecision and still being mad at George from
the day before, them bad feelings just melted right away like they
had never been there at all. Jessie had to help me get it on my
finger because I was shaking so hard, and poor George, he couldn’t
get near me for all the people crowding around to eye that ring.
But I caught his eye over Jessie’s shoulder and said
“
Hell, yes, I’ll marry you, George
Willets
.” Everyone just about died
laughing, and then I was in his arms and he was whooping like Daddy
did when his team had just scored a touchdown. Miss Taylor wrote me
an excuse to get out of school for the rest of the day, and I
jumped on into that limo with George and he told the driver to take
us out to the hunting cabin, and “
don’t
come back for two hours
.” When we got there
it had about fifty dozen bouquets of lavender roses covering every
inch of it.

Me and George drank a whole
bottle of champagne as, being so excited; we totally forgot that I
was pregnant in the heat of the moment. Later on I got real worried
about it, but George said I shouldn’t worry. He said that all the
Willets men knew how to hold their liquor, which seemed hilarious
to me at the time.

It’s funny but ever since I
had told George yes, and got my ring, and everyone at school had
acted so happy and excited, well it made me realize that, after
all, I was pretty sure I had loved him and wanted to marry him all
along. He got real emotional when I told him what I was thinking,
and he said to me “
Leeann, I realized last
night that I had been the biggest asshole in Oklahoma to you when
you told me you was pregnant. So, when you wouldn’t see me last
night, I got afraid that I had lost you and our little baby
forever. That’s why I got my sorry ass up at the crack of dawn this
morning and I had my pilot fly me to Harry Winston up in Dallas You
know, Sugar, when I got inside old Harry’s place, why I decided to
break the bank and get the biggest, most beautiful ring for the
most beautiful girl, which you for sure are, Leeann, even if you
ain’t the biggest
.”

He told me that when I had
said "
Hell, yes
"
to him, why he realized he had never been happier in his life than
when he was with me, and now that he knew how happy I made him,
why, if I had said no, he was gonna come out here and look at all
these roses he had got me, and then blow his brains out.

I thought that was the
nicest thing anyone had ever said to me, so I said to him
“
Hey, Georgie, I know you like to look at
me when I am just wearing diamonds, so how about I model this one
for you right now?
” I had never called him
Georgie before on account of me not realizing I had loved him all
along. He must have liked it too, because he just grinned like a
pole cat, and nodded up and down real fast. Then he reached into
his pocket and handed me my diamond studs. He said I better put
“
these on too, so I wouldn’t catch a
cold
.”

I was pretty happy to see
them and asked him how the heck he had gotten them back. He got
this kind of sad expression on his face then and told me that after
he convinced my daddy that he loved me, and wanted to marry me,
well then him and Daddy, who were both real drunk at the time, went
dumpster diving out back of the Piggly.

I started to laughing so
hard that I could barely get my earrings on, and my clothes off.
George, he got real offended, and said to me “
Hell, Leeann, I don’t know why you’re laughing. Shit, it was
the most disgusting thing I ever had to do. Your daddy's a crazy
man, throwing them diamonds into the garbage like that. Those
goddamn earrings cost me nearly a hundred thousand
dollars
.”

I was buck naked by then,
except for what I now know was nearly six hundred thousand dollars
worth of diamonds, so I sauntered on over and sat down on his lap
still laughing and said, “
I know baby.
That is just awful what Daddy did; it’s just that, see, the last
thing I was thinking of last night was that I bet Daddy either put
my earrings in the Piggly’s dumpster or that he threw them in Lake
Injun, and I was right, see, so that’s what I’m laughing about …
not at you
.”

Well, looking at me sitting
there naked as the day I was born, George didn’t seem to much care
anymore what I was laughing at. And right before we got started
doing stuff, he told me that he loved me so much and that he was
gonna see that I got to have everything in the world I wanted every
day of my life. That sounded real fine to me and, to be strictly
honest, that was the first time that George and I ever did it when
I liked it too.

Chapter 16

George went inside with me
that night for the first time. Daddy was sitting in the living room
looking like a dog’s dinner. I knew about his little trashcapades
the night before so I wasn’t too surprised. He looked up at me
standing there wearing all my bling, and at George in his (real
rumpled now) tuxedo and he just grunted. But George, well hell, he
must have been taking hero pills that day, because he went right on
in and sat down next to Daddy on the couch and said nice as pie
“
Mr. Worthier, Sir, I just wanted to thank
you for agreeing to give me Leeann’s hand in marriage. Today she
said yes too and, I’ve got to tell you, I am feeling like about the
luckiest son of a bitch in Oklahoma right now. I am hoping that you
will step outside with me and get into that limo and we can go down
to Downey’s and sink a few in honor of this special
occasion
.”

Daddy looked like he had
been hit up side of the head with a baseball bat.

“
Son, I appreciate the
sentiments, and I think it’s real good that you are standing up to
your responsibilities as a man should do, but, boy, if we get out
of that limo and walk into Downey’s with you dressed like that, we
are liable to both get killed dead and then
murdered
.”

George threw back his head
and laughed. “
All right then, Mr.
Worthier, I’ll just leave the jacket here with my bride to be and
this damn bow tie too, and we can ride on down in your rig if you
want
.” While he was talking, he ripped off
the jacket and the bow tie which I noted was not a clip on like the
one Randy had worn at his wedding. After he did that, George looked
just like any man in a plain shirt and black pants - which were too
short still - but now that I realized I loved him and everything,
well I just made a note to myself to let the hem out one day, as I
sewed real nicely thanks to Mama.

Daddy looked George up and
down, like he was the mayor of clothing town and said in a kinda
choked up voice like he was trying not to laugh at George
”
All right, Son, you’ll do, and I’ll tell
you what, you can call me Charlie. We’ll be family now, and family
don’t call each other Mr. this and that. Leeann, Sugar, tell your
mama not to wait supper. I got to show my new son here how to drink
like a Worthier
.”

I was awful happy to hear
my daddy calling me ‘Sugar’ again, and I was damn proud of George
for getting him to do it. To show my happiness at these events, I
kissed them before they got out the door, a big long wet one for
George and then a short hard hug for my daddy, who didn’t pull
away. Mama was always saying “
what a
difference a day makes
”, and wasn’t that
the truth?

Chapter 17

Tomorrow is the wedding and
our whole house has been in an uproar for the last two weeks. Mama
made - insisted on making - all the bridesmaid dresses. I really
wanted to buy them from Couture Brides, which is the same store
that I got my perfect dress from, but I never told her that because
it would have killed her.

Jessie said if I even
suggested it, I would be acting just like Miz Willets, and that the
whole town would have stopped using Elma’s Occasion Gowns if her
own daughter didn’t have them in her wedding. She had a point, so I
just acted real excited about Mama’s designs which, to be strictly
honest, looked like every other bridesmaid dress she had ever made;
in other words, big and taffeta. This meant that in addition to
Jessie and Sarah Beth’s fittings, we had Lurlene, Britney, May, my
twin cousins Polly and Molly, and those freaks Audrey and Missy
traipsing in and out of the house constantly. Daddy had pretty much
moved into Downey’s to avoid all the females in his house, and
Jessie and I wished we could go with him. As if that wasn’t bad
enough, the new lavender carpet for our townhouse had come, and it
wasn’t lavender at all … it was some horrible cranberry color. When
I saw it I just cried and cried. George got so flustered, he kept
saying “
Come on, Sugar, I’ll get 'em to
fix it, you know I will
.” But I couldn’t
stop crying. Finally he just rushed me back to Mama who told him
not to worry, that it was just pregnancy hormones, and that it
“
would get worse before it got
better
” which did not seem to reassure him
a bit.