The Wedding Machine (40 page)
She supposes they might have gotten together sooner or later, but they may not have had that moment. That memory of the warm wheel well in the back of Angus's flatbed, and her future husband patting her back before putting his hand out flat as if he wanted her to give him five. Then his gentle voice filling the black space between them as he said, “I'm Willy, pretty girl.”
First I want to thank my dear friend Jenny Dickinson, and my husband, Edward B. Hart, Jr. who gave me the idea during a conversation around the dinner table a few years ago. I'm so glad we decided to compare weddings.
A pregnant writer is no basket of fruit, and I am immensely grateful to my editor, Ami McConnell, and my copy editor, Rachelle Gardner, who kept me (and the story) on track during a long nine months. Their illuminating critiques and wise counsel made all of the difference. Thanks also go to my hometown readers who encouraged me during the early drafts: Lisa Hughes, Amy Watson Smith, and my husband, Edward.
I am indebted to my publicist, Marjory Wentworth, as well as the following South Carolina bookstores: The Cozy Corner on Edisto Island, The Open Book in Greenville, Litchfield Books on Pawleys Island, and the Barnes & Noble booksellers in Mount Pleasant, Hilton Head, and Charleston. The books would never make it into the hands of readers if it weren't for the work of these good folks.
Finally, thanks be to the One from whom all good things come. I am blessed beyond measure to have the opportunity to do what I love.
1.
The Wedding Machine
is written in third person, but each chapter is devoted to different, alternating points of view. What affect do the shifting viewpoints have on the story? Is there one character who forms the emotional core of the book? Discuss.
2. Consider the “watermelon stealing” flashback. Why is the memory of this event significant to each of the four women who form The Wedding Machine? In what ways were their roles and personas established on that summer night so many decades ago?
3. In the prologue, the four gals are described as “young, hopeful virgins promised to their small town sweethearts.” In what way is the prospect of marriage promising to each of them? Whose marriage has survived and thrived. Whose hasn't? Why?
4. How is the town of Jasper changing? Who is threatened by this change and why?
5. Ray says that the gals can hardly relate to their offspring. Why do you think this is? What constitutes the chasm between these two generations?
6. Consider the friendships of the foursome. How do they grow and deepen over the course of the story? Does Hilda's “hiding out” contribute to this growth?
7. Why does Sis need to get rid of the wedding dress? How does this contribute to her character's development?
8. Consider Kitty B.'s Thanksgiving confrontation with LeMar. Do you agree with the ultimatum she gave him?
9. What revelation does Ray have at the Healing Prayer Revival Day? How does her conversation with Cousin Willy about her family history bolster this revelation?
10. Do you think Hilda will ever come out of hiding? Imagine how and when this might happen. Describe.
prologue
Swimming Lesson
I
had just turned six the afternoon my father peeled off my water wings to show me I could swim. We were spending the last week of summer on Pawleys Island, and the August tide had built a gully four feet deep and almost twenty yards wide that was flanked by a sandbar on the ocean side and beds of crushed shells along the beach.
“Come on in, Adelaide,” he said, motioning with his good arm as I stood at the edge of the gully, fingering the dime-sized mole in the center of my forehead. My jewel, Daddy had named it, and because of him I believed it was a precious stone that marked my distinction.
As I stepped ankle-deep into the warm, salty water, I glanced back over the dunes to the front porch of the beach cottage where my paternal grandfolks, Papa Great and Mae Mae, were already sipping their gin and tonics while Mama spooned pea mush out of a little jar that Dizzy, my younger sister, refused to eat. And I imagined the pop and sizzle of Juliabelle frying up shrimp and hush puppies in the kitchen, though I knew she was watching me out of the corner of her eye.
“If you make the swim, I give you a piece from the secret stash, eh?” she had said. She hoarded bubble gum in a brown paper bag beneath her bed, and I hounded her for a piece whenever I got the chance.
Daddy was near the middle of the gully now, the murky green licking his washboard belly. He dived under for several seconds before turning over and floating on his back, his broad chest rising out of the water. He spit a fountain of green from his lips and said, “Sure feels good!”
I would have splashed right in after Daddy if I'd had a flotation device. A few days ago he had shown me how to paddle in my water wings over to the sandbar at low tide, and I had filled my bucket with bachelor's buttons, hermits, and a horseshoe crab that was shuffling across the surface in its heavy armor. But yesterday Papa Great dared me to go on my own (no Daddy and no life jacket), and I had sunk into the dark, soupy depth at the center of the gully, swallowing what felt like half the Atlantic Ocean until Daddy caught hold of my ponytail and yanked me to the surface.
Now I moved in to my knees and planned to take every second of the time he was giving me to get my courage up. There was a quick drop-off after the next bed of crushed shells, and I knew that in a few short steps the water would cover me whole.
“Don't push her too hard, Zane,” Mama called from behind the screened porch. There was a murmur among them that I couldn't make out, but even at that tender age I could guess that Mae Mae was saying, “Let her try,” while Papa Great concluded, “Fear's got her by the scruff.”
Fact was, I wasn't afraid of what was
in
the ocean. Why, a man-of-war had wrapped its tentacles around my second cousin Randy's calf two mornings ago, leaving thin red burn marks, as if he had been caught in one of the wild hog traps Daddy set along the swamp. And even after Mama numbed Randy's leg with meat tenderizer and let me touch it, so I could feel the heat rising off his seared skin, I still jumped right back into the gully that afternoon.
And just this morning, Papa Great had caught a sand shark longer than my leg on his fishing line, and I had touched its leathery belly with the tip of my big toe as he held it between his knees and pulled the hook out of its snout. But right after, I went back in with Daddy to venture to the sandbar and collect my treasures.
No, it wasn't fear of what was in the water. Seems to me I just didn't want that dark and covered feeling. Not knowing which way was up. Not knowing if Daddy would find me.
The water wings were swirling in the breeze along the beach now as I stood knee-deep in the gully, and since I prided myself in keeping track of my belongings, I stepped out to chase after them. To pin them beneath Daddy's beach chair.
“Don't worry about those, gal!” he said as he stood back up in the water and shook his head so that his soaked hair looked like two fins above his ears. “Now,
come on in
.”
The water was a gray-green broth, and when I stepped back in, I could feel the sand and shells stir up for a moment, but I couldn't see through the clouds to whatever was swirling around my legs now.
All of a sudden, Daddy moved forward and pulled me out by my elbow with his only hand. He smelled like sweat and coconut suntan lotion, and I had to paddle quickly with my other arm beneath his fiery pink stump to stay afloat. The stump was wrinkled at its very tip from where a doctor had sliced off his forearm in an army hospital in Than Khe, Vietnam. Sometimes I asked him what the hospital had done with his other arm, and he winked and said they fed it to the dogs before admitting that he didn't have the foggiest idea.
Now I was flailing my arms and gasping for air as we reached the gully depths, and he said, “I'm going to let go, all right? I'll be here if you need me.”
He released my arm, and I tried to touch bottom just to get my bearings. To get a nice shove up and out of the water. Some momentum. But as my foot searched for the sharp shells that lined the floor, I was already sunk, and when I breathed in the water, it stung my nose and throat.
“Easy now,” Daddy said, lifting me above the surface for a moment so I could cough it out. Then, “Here we go again, gal.” And he dropped me down and stepped back fast.
I tried whirling my arms and legs into a motion that would buoy me, but before you could say “boo!” I was covered in the dark soup again and holding my breath.
One Mississippi.
Two Mississippi.
Covered in darkness.
Water rushing into my nose.
He found my shoulder this time, pulled me up, and dragged me onto the shore, where I coughed for dear life and rubbed my burning eyes. My heart was pounding like the wings of the hummingbirds that sipped from Mae Mae's feeder most afternoons. And the tiny bits of crushed shells were clinging to the backs of my legs and gathering in the folds of my bathing suit.
“You're my little fish, Adelaide,” Daddy said.
Papa Great had given him the month of August off so that he could vacation with us, and as long as I had his hand and a float, I'd go way out beyond the waves and let the current push us down the beach toward the pier.
“I know you can do it,” he whispered now.
“Dinnertime!” Juliabelle called from the screened porch. I could see her long, thin neck craning to check on me. She never went near the ocean. Her younger brother had drowned in the surf when she was a girl, and she said it would do me good to know how to keep myself afloat. But I guessed even she was concluding that I couldn't do it. Not this year, anyway.
The porch door slapped once as Papa Great ambled out onto the boardwalk to holler down at us.
“Maybe next summer, Son,” he called to Daddy as he caught a mosquito in his fist and examined the small heap of blood and wings in the center of his palm. “Y'all come on in for supper now.”
The pink sun was sitting for a moment on top of the ocean as if it were a beach ball floating on the surface. A mullet jumped up from the gully, and Daddy squeezed my shoulder before exhaling, “Let's go in, sweetheart.”
His first steps toward the boardwalk left a shower of wet sand along the small of my back, and a newfound fury started rising inside me. When I spotted one of my water wings flying over the dunes toward a neighbor's cottage, the fury stoked itself into a hot fire in my throat as if I had just swallowed the popping grease from Juliabelle's iron skillet.
“No!” I said.
I wanted to cry and hit something, but I knew what I had to do, and when I ran back into the gully, I tripped over the shells and splashed clumsily to the deep center.
More salt water in my throat now. A burning in my nose. But still I twitched, thrashed my arms and legs with all my might, and managed to keep my head above water for a few seconds.
Twitch. Kick. Slap. Slap. Breathe.
Kick. Slap. Reach. Breathe.
Daddy turned back to see what the commotion was about, and then he called, “Look!” to the porch, though everyone was already inside for dinner. Then he ran into the gully and stood feet in front of me as I made my way to his outstretched hand.
“That's a girl!” he said as I paddled for him. “I
knew
you could do it!”
He stepped back a few times the closer I got to him, and when I had made my way past the boardwalk and the crab trap and Papa Great's fishing lines, he caught me, lifted me up onto his shoulder with his good hand beneath one arm and his stump beneath my other, and spun me around twice before plunging us backward into the murky water.
He was a former college football tailback for the University of South Carolina, and I loved his burly horsing around, so when his shoulder hit my lip in this celebratory pitch, I didn't mind the pain or the metal tang of blood on my tongue. And I laughed the sweet laugh of victory because I had proved us both right, and because I'd believed, like when my teacher had discovered I was seeing letters backward, that I could force things back to where they belonged.
