The Wedding Machine (30 page)
He stared for a moment at the reams and reams of paper stacked beside the copier and said, “Thank you for being honest with me.”
“You're welcome,” she said.
Then he looked up and met her eyes. “God does have a plan for each of us.”
She bit her lip and nodded. “I hope so.”
Now as Sis walks out into the crisp December afternoon, some of the last leaves from Ray's maple tree swirl down onto the brown grass. Instead of going to church she walks the few houses down to her mama's old home and goes up to her room. The wedding dress hangs at the far end of her closet, and she stops to breathe in the stale air for a moment before she pulls it down and carries it out to her car where she shoves it in the trunk.
“Where are you going with that dress, Sis?” Kitty B. calls from her car window.
Sis looks up, guilty.
She thinks I've gone and lost it for sure now.
She straightens up. “Goodwill.”
“Oh, now Sis, don't do that.” Kitty B. parks her car and opens the door toward Sis.
Next Ray comes running out of the front door and along the brick path toward the opening of her garden gate that leads to the street.
“Now, look what we've done!” Kitty B. says to Ray as they move in on Sis.
“Don't come any closer,” Sis says, holding up her hand to stop them.
“Sis Mims,” Ray says. “Hand me that dress right now.”
“No,” Sis says, turning to her. “I will not.”
Kitty B. looks over to Ray in disbelief.
“It really might work for Pris,” Ray says. “Here, let me see it.”
“No it
won't,
Ray,” Sis says as Kitty B., her eyes brimming with tears, inches closer toward the dress.
“It's okay, Kitty B.” Sis holds up a hand to stop her.
“It's something I need to do. Somebody might like a dress like this. It's not bad luck or anything. But more than that, I've just got to get rid of it, you know? If I have to face it when I'm cleaning out that house after Mama dies, I might lose my mind for good. This dress has been hanging in my closet for thirty-four years now, and I need to get rid of it. Can't you understand?”
Kitty B. nods and pats her eyes with the tips of her fingers. Sis waves her away and says, “C'mon now. This is old. This is history. And I've got to find a way to put it behind me.”
Sis doesn't look back to Kitty B. or to Ray. She can't. Instead, she just slams down the trunk and doesn't even worry about the fact that a little bit of the sheet and the tip of the beaded train are hanging out of the back. She just hopes a bird doesn't crap on them.
“'Bye, gals,” she says as she gets in her car without giving them another look. The faster she does this, the better she will feel. She just knows it. She just knows it. And she tells this to herself over and over as she races down Third Street onto Main and crosses over the railroad tracks toward Ravenel where the Goodwill sits right between a K-Mart and a Buck's Pizza.
Whew!
She hits the open road of Highway 17.
I feel better already.
“I'm going out,” Ray calls to Willy on her way down the street. “I've left some cinnamon rolls on top of the oven for everyone, and there's a fresh pot of coffee on.”
“All right,” he says. “I'll let folks know.”
It's been eight weeks since Hilda closed her door to the world, and Ray thinks it's time the woman showed her face. She's been spying on the delivery boy from Barbour's Grocery who drops a package off at the back of Hilda's house every Wednesday morning, and today she's got about an hour where she can duck down in the pittosporum bushes and wait for Hilda to open the back door. She's just got to lay eyes on her and see what kind of condition she's in, and if she can get a word in, she knows she can convince her to open her door for Little Hilda, who's in town for Thanksgiving weekend and Angus's wedding.
Just like clockwork, the young man walks through the wrought iron gates and around the back of the house with two bags full of groceries. She can see a half carton of milk peeking out of the top of one of those bags, and she knows Hilda won't let that sit outside for long. When the boy leaves, Ray shimmies through a doorway in the brick wall that runs alongside the house and she crouches behind one of the larger bushes. She waits for fifteen whole minutes without blinking an eye, but she doesn't see any movement on the back porch.
It's the day before Thanksgiving, and the children have descended for the holiday and the wedding. Except for Priscilla. She's on the way to Ridgefield, Connecticut, to meet Donovan's parents. If Ray weren't so worried about Hilda, she'd be on top of the world, thanks to the hormone replacement therapy and her daughter's imminent engagement.
She skipped yesterday's vestry meeting to pick up Priscilla's ring from Croghan's. Then she took it to the Charleston airport where a special courier will deliver it to Donovan in Baltimore tomorrow.
Vangie's voice was on her answering machine when she got home last night. “Ray,” she said. “We need to talk. The revival healing day is only six weeks away, and I need you to help me with the sign-up sheets.”
Ray rolled her eyes.
Too busy for that nonsense.
Then she pushed the delete button on the machine and started polishing the silver for her Thanksgiving feast.
She's offered Priscilla's room to Little Hilda and Giuseppe, and they arrived last night looking so grown-up. It was awfully strange for Ray to show them to Priscilla's peach and white eyelet room where Little Hilda spent many a night during her childhood. It gave Ray a funny feelingâthe realization that her daughter's best friend is officially allowed to spend the night in the same bed with a grown man. But the way Giuseppe picked up Little Hilda's bag and carried it up the stairs made Ray well up with a kind of hope and excitement about their union. And Priscilla's future one. Hilda would be so proud. It's time for her to come out of her shell and see her daughter, and Ray is not afraid to wait her out.
The bushes poke at Ray's ribs as she pushes back into them. Maybe she should have worn some of Willy's camouflage. She rubs her neck and stares at Hilda's back door. It's awfully hot for November, and she should have brought some of that bottled water Justin brought home the other day from that Costco in Charleston.
Suddenly, she feels something creeping up her neck. It's some kind of bug or spider, she is sure, and now it's crawling down her back.
“Ahh,” she shrieks as she feels it bite her skin.
Before she knows it she has to strip off her sweater and her blouse and swat at her back until it's gone.
By the time she gets her blouse back on, she looks over at the back piazza, and the groceries are gone. Well, doggone it.
“Hilda!” she screams.
She comes running out from behind the bushes with her sweater buttoned wrong and her hair sticking out in all directions and bangs on the glass door of the back piazza.
“Hilda Prescott, open this door! I need to talk to you!”
She peers through the window, but all she can make out is the sofa in the den and the corner of a grocery bag on the kitchen counter.
“Your child is in town, and she's staying at my house!” Ray hollers. “Don't you want to come out to see her?”
The house seems more still than ever. Like it's holding its breath. Ray can't detect the slightest sound or movement, and she wonders where in the world Hilda is hidingâin the linen closet or the kitchen cupboard or maybe behind the sofa.
“Come on out now,” Ray says. “I just want to lay eyes on you.”
Her forehead is up against the glass. “I really might call the fire department this time. Or maybe I'll get Willy and Justin to climb up to the top piazza and open the door. I know that one has never had a working lock.”
She paces the moss covered bricks, but the house doesn't even creak. There is no sign of Hilda. That stubborn old mule. How long does she expect to pull this off? Ray will find a way to get her out of there. But how?
“Fine,” Ray hollers at the door and takes a step back. “You're going to miss your daughter and your son-in-law and a whole lot of other things unless you get your nerve up and step out here. Do you hear me, Hilda?”
Now Ray sees her reflection in the glass, and she quickly rebut-tons her sweater. Then she licks her palms and tries to flatten her hair. She's got to call Sylvia Crenshaw for an emergency appointment. She can't have Thanksgiving dinner or attend Angus's wedding with this bedraggled do.
Of course, Sylvia won't be available the day before her sister's wedding, but Ray's going to drive over there right now and beg her to do it. Sylvia's got a soft spot, and she won't be able to turn Ray away.
Kitty B. spends Thanksgiving morning in the kitchen basting the turkey and making the dressing and gravy. Marshall and his parents are coming over for dinner, and Katie Rae went into Charleston to take part in their Thanksgiving service. Tommy and Cricket are coming over, too, but the funeral home is short staffed for the holiday weekend, and they have to attend to the family of a teenage boy who crashed his car into a live oak tree in the wee hours of Tuesday morning on his way home from a party in a cornfield on the outskirts of town.
Kitty B.'s felt a lump in her throat ever since she heard about that accident. When someone young dies, it hits her hard, and it takes her back to the time when she lost Baby Roberta. Next week will be the twenty-seventh anniversary of that awful night, and she's trying not to think about it too much. If she lets her mind go there, she'll be screaming at God by the end of it all, and that only seems to make it worse.
She tries to shake off the thought of it for the sake of the holiday. Her family hasn't had a full-blown Thanksgiving dinner since LeMar fell ill a few years ago, so she's making all of the old favorites: rice and gravy, oyster pie, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, and pickled artichokes. And of course, her mama's homemade biscuits that just melt in your mouth.
She's even dusted off the old cornucopia basket she used to put out when the girls were little, and she's created a table centerpiece that Ray would be proud of with dried corn, pumpkin gourds, plums, apples, and tangerines. Kitty B. wants things to be nice for Marshall and Katie Rae and the Benningtons. This should be a joyful time, and if she can pull this dinner off, she hopes it will be the beginning of many holidays spent around the table together.
As Kitty B. pulls out the silver butter tray Hilda gave her for a wedding gift over thirty-five years ago, she prays, “Lord, carry her in your arms today.” Tonight Angus will tie the knot with Trudi, and she knows Hilda's heart is just shattered. She's on duty at Hilda's this evening since Ray and Sis have been called on to help with the wedding. After dinner breaks up here, she'll make a nice basket of leftovers and take them into town. She figures she'll sit in Hilda's garden all evening just to let her know she's not alone.
“LeMar,” she calls up the stairs. “It's ten o'clock, and I could sure use a hand. Time to get up now.”
“Can't,” he shouts from behind the door in his room. “Come up here, Kitty B. I need to talk to you.”
Oh, Lord
, she prays.
Give me patience.
When she rounds the stairwell and knocks on his door, she can hear Wagner's
Parsifal
playing on the CD player by his bed.
“C'mon in,” he says as he turns down the music.
“What's wrong?” She pushes at the old, swollen door until it opens. LeMar's propped himself up on four pillows and he's still in his nightshirt and boxers. Both of his hands grasp his throat.
“My neck aches,” he says. “I think it's swollen.”
He turns over and points to the base of his head. “Take a look at it for me.”
Kitty B. peers over and takes a gander at his neck. Aside from a little pinkness, it doesn't look any different than it looked yesterday or the day before that.
“Looks all right to me,” she says. “Now you told me you were going to help me with this dinner. The guests are going to be here in a few hours, and there is no way I can get everything together without you.”
“Doggone it, Kitty B.!” LeMar shouts. He hurls the glass of water by his bed down on the ground and it shatters. “I don't feel good, and all you can do is shout orders at me.”
Kitty B. shakes her head. She walks stiffly over, stoops down, and picks up the shards of glass. The thought half-crosses her mind to leave a sharp piece down there for the next time he gets out of bed, but that would only provoke more whining and maybe even another exasperating trip to the Medical University.
“I'm sure you just slept on it the wrong way,” she says. “You've been feeling so much better, remember? Now you've got to help me welcome the Benningtons into our home.”