Big Stone Gap Part 3

"Genius or not, we gotta get him shot correctly so he can die at the end of the play. It's the last show of the season. Wouldn't it be nice to go out with the right bang?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Poor old Pearl; what she's got, Tayloe is missing. She's got the thin brown hair, the thick ankles, and the weight problem. Pearl has beautiful hands, though. Pretty-faced girls usually have ugly hands. But then again, I don't know a lot of people who notice hands.

"Tayloe sure does look pretty," Pearl decides as she stands there.

"Yeah."

"That costume is mighty tight."

I'm thinking that I would never wear that dress myself. That's the difference between me and Pearl: She still has the dream of wearing it.

"She's stuck-up, though," Pearl zings.

I let the comment pa.s.s. It doesn't do me any good to try to convince Pearl that beauty comes from within and that age will eventually wither a pretty face. I get a pain in my left temple watching poor Pearl looking up on the stage at Tayloe like there is some answer up there. She is hoping that beauty will be truth. But that observation was surely made by the father of a very beautiful daughter, not Pearl's and surely not mine. Tayloe is conceited. But so what? Tayloe, not Pearl, is in the beam of the spotlight. Tayloe, not Pearl, is being examined and appreciated from all sides like a rare ruby. How Pearl wishes she was The One! Of course, I could lie. I could tell Pearl that being the prettiest girl in town is no great shakes, but eventually she would find out the truth. When you're fifteen, it is everything. And when you're thirty-five, it's still something. Beauty is the fat yellow line down the middle of Powell Valley Road. And it's best to figure out-and the sooner the better-which side you fall on, because if you don't do it for yourself, the world will. Why wait for the judgment?

Pearl squints at the stage and breathes the night air slowly like a drag off a cigarette. She is trying so hard to understand, trying to understand why Tayloe and not her.

"Maybe you ought to check your prop table. Curtain's almost up," I remind her.

Pearl straightens up and goes backstage with a purpose. Having a purpose is the little secret of the nonpretties. Something to do always beats something to look at.

The cast looks terrific onstage. They've worked five shows a week all summer, yet they still have pep. They're still excited about doing the show. I'll spare you the details of the auditions and casting that take place every year from March till June. Let's just say it is highly compet.i.tive. Nothing like the theater to bring out the claws and pepper in people. Folks want the part they want and that's it. Never mind they're the wrong age, or can't sing, or can't dance. They'd leave notes on my Jeep, call me at home, give me gifts of cakes and jellies-anything to sway me. I can't imagine the compet.i.tion on Broadway itself could be any more brutal than it is right here. Thank goodness there are parts that actors grow into: Li'l Bub becomes Big Bub, who can then play Dave Tolliver, then, as he ages, Bad Rufe, all the way to the patriarch, Devil Judd. We've been doing the show so long, the cast members know one another's lines. We never have an understudy problem.

We do have an annoying stage mother: Betty Slagle. Tayloe's mom caused me so much grief with her many suggestions-of course all of them showing off her daughter to full advantage and forsaking the story-that I put her on the costume crew. She's busy pressing pants now, so she stays off my back.

I signal the Foxes to open the house. The Foxes are our women's auxiliary group named in honor of John Fox, Jr. (of course). They run the ticket sales, the concessions, and the rug-loom demonstration at the Fox Museum during intermission. They're a clique of young 'n' s.e.xy divorcees and single girls. There's a sorority feeling to their activities. And they keep the history alive, so their form-fitting T-shirts say.

I cue the band to begin the overture. Jack Mac winks at me; I wink back. Now we have a secret-I've seen him in his underwear-and it's kind of fun. He nods to his boys, and they play. I'm always thrilled by the sound of those strings, mandolins so simple and clear. The soft melody sails over the outdoor theater and spills out into the dark. I take my place on the perch next to Bo's follow spot on the back wall. No matter how many times I've watched the show, I still get nervous before Curtain. I look down as the audience filters in. Iva Lou Wade comes in with a nice-looking man I've never seen before. (Where does she find them?) She wears a flowy mint-green pant set that makes her look like a Greek G.o.ddess. The gold armband completes the effect. She grins at me and I wave.

Our final show comes off without a hitch. The foot-stomp-blood-spurt cure that Pearl came up with worked (thank G.o.d). The show was perfect until Li'l Bub pulled a closing-night prank. When Theodore was shot, he threw a rubber chicken onto the stage. The crowd went wild. Theodore was not amused. After three standing ovations, Bo shines a light on me and I am motioned to the stage by my cast. Two chorus boys help me up onto the stage. Tayloe whistles through her teeth in approval. How funny that looks, as she is dressed in her Kentucky-society finale gown. I embrace each of our four leads. Then I pull Pearl from backstage. I give her a big hug for her stroke of genius, and she beams. Then I give my usual "thank you for the best season yet" speech. Sweet Sue Tinsley, president of the Foxes, walks across the stage with a bottle of champagne and presents it to me.

Sweet Sue is my age, and she was the Tayloe Slagle of our day. She is still as pretty as a teenager, small and blond, with vivid blue eyes. She's as popular now as she was in high school (accomplishment). She wasn't born with that name, though. There were three Sues in our first-grade cla.s.s. The teacher got confused, so she gave each of them nicknames, which stuck. There was Tall Sue, Li'l Bit Sue, and this one, our Sweet Sue.

"A-vuh Maria, this bubbly is from the Foxes with our compliments. You're the best gosh-darned dye-rector anywhere ever on earth, and we appreciate your work so very much!" Loud applause for Sweet Sue fills the air, and enough wolf whistles cut through to conjure a Miss America pageant. For a moment I consider correcting Sweet Sue on the p.r.o.nunciation of my name: It isn't A-vuh Maria like Ava Gardner, it's Ave like a prayer. Sweet Sue has been misp.r.o.nouncing my name since first grade. Is she ever going to get it right? I decide to let it go when I look out over the crowd and see their warm and smiling faces. This isn't the time to be petty. I realize the pause after Sweet Sue's speech has gone on too long. Her eyes implore me to say something. And fast. She has that frozen smile and certain impatience that all pretty girls possess. Your turn, she seems to be saying with her eyes.

I blurt, "Thank you kindly, Sweet Sue. And thank you, Foxes." Sweet Sue is relieved as I accept the champagne.

"Hey, boys, how 'bout a song for Sweet Sue, the prettiest gal in town?" shouts our drummer from the pit.

"Thank you, boys," Sweet Sue says magnanimously. Then she leans into the pit and kisses Jack Mac long and hard. The crowd cheers. Then a chorus of "Ask her, Jack! Ask her, Jack!" The band pushes Jack Mac out of the pit, onto the stage. Wanda Brickey, who plays the mountain matriarch in the Drama, bangs the floor with her walking stick. "Jack Mac, if you don't marry this girl, it don't make a lick of sense."

The crowd calms down and waits for Jack's response. "Folks, y'all know I'm a private person-"

Before he can finish, Sweet Sue pipes up, "The answer is yes. Yes!" She kisses Jack Mac all over the face. She shouts, "I love this man!" Her sons, still in mountain-boy costume, run up to the stage. The crowd cheers. The cold bottle of champagne I hold seems as though it's in the wrong hands all of a sudden. So I make a stage-right cross and hand it to Jack Mac.

"Congratulations!" I say happily. The crowd goes wild.

Jack Mac leans into my ear and says, "Thank you."

I look at him. "Call your mother."

"Yes, ma'am." Jack Mac kisses my cheek. Sweet Sue grabs him away.

"Hey, Ava, he's mine. Find your own man!"

The crowd laughs; it's one of those long, rolling laughs. Now, when you're the town spinster, jokes of this sort aren't one bit funny. Around here, being married makes you a prize. No one has claimed me, and although it shouldn't hurt me, it does. I could cry. Instead, I bend forward and laugh louder than anyone in the house.

Theodore, as if on cue, comes up behind me and puts his hands around my waist. Then he announces, "She has a man, Sweet Sue." I look up at Theodore, the most beautiful man I have ever seen. I lean against him.

"Well, I didn't mean to . . ." Sweet Sue stutters. Jack Mac cues the band, gracefully saving his girlfriend's face. He shrugs at me.

Theodore takes me in his arms to dance. The music fills the theater. Somebody's singing the lyrics, but all I hear is Theodore's voice saying, "She has a man! She has a man!" onstage, in public, and loudly for all to hear! He looks down at me and smiles. I feel wanted, claimed, and-I can't believe it-alluring. Instead of looking off as we dance, I look into his eyes, and they are as blue as the sky on the backdrop.

And then we stop. Theodore kisses me. It's not the usual friendly kiss I have become accustomed to all of these years. So at first I don't lock in. I'm confused. Then his lips, wordless and soft, persist. My spine turns from rivets of bone into a velvet ribbon spinning off its wheel and pooling onto the floor. I hold on to him like Myrna Loy did Clark Gable when they jumped out of a two-seater plane in Test Pilot. My waist is on a swivel as he dips me. But the kiss doesn't end. Moments later, when it does, my body feels like it is full of goose feathers. Theodore holds my face while everyone dances around us, offering looks of approval.

"You need lipstick," he says, squinting at me.

"You don't." I dab the Really Red I left there off of his face. We laugh. It's one of those shared moments that can only come between two people who know each other so well that it borders on irony. Theodore pulls me close. I rest my head on his shoulder. He smells fresh, a mix of peppermint and spice. I look across the dance floor. Iva Lou gives me a thumbs-up.

"Let's get out of here," Theodore says with an urgency I've never heard before. He takes my hand and yanks me off the stage, and I skip down the stairs behind him.

Nellie Goodloe, president of the Lonesome Pine Arts and Crafts Guild, stops us. "Mr. Tipton, I need to speak to you about candidate John Warner's visit to the Gap."

"We were just leaving," Theodore says firmly. Nellie turns to me.

"Ave Maria, tell him this is important," she says.

"It can wait," Theodore tells her with finality.

"It can't wait. I got a call from John Warner's press person, and they want a confirmation that the town is going to go all out for his campaign stump through Southwestern Virginia."

Nellie's mouth keeps moving, but I can't hear her. Her lips and hair are orange, and she has placed her hand on Theodore's chest. John Warner is married to Elizabeth Taylor of National Velvet fame, and they're coming to town and Nellie wants Theodore to put together a tribute salute in her honor. The town wants to show off its best a.s.set: the Powell Valley High School marching band. They want a doozy of a halftime show. I can't contemplate all this right now. After tonight my life as it has been will be changed forever. I am a lover! In the sc.r.a.p heaps of these hills of coal, someone found me. I am wanted! I have been waiting all of my life for this.

As folks sail by in a blur, talking and laughing, it occurs to me that they probably believe that Theodore and I, as close as we are, have a full relationship already. But since Theodore moved to town and we became friends, my mother had been ill, and I didn't feel right spending time away from her. So Theodore and I have had friendship without romance. At first I thought something might be wrong, but now I understand. He was waiting. Waiting for my heart to settle down from its grief, so it could make room for him!

Now the years seem wasted, like a lifetime, and I want to shove bossy Nellie Goodloe down on the wood chips and gag her with the polka-dot scarf she has tied around her neck chuck-wagon-style. Doesn't she understand that my body is filled with such longing that I have the strength to turn a truck over with my bare hands? That I have dreamed of wrapping myself around this man from the first day we met? Can't she see that I'm a ripe plum that will explode if touched? I interrupt them, and I am not one bit sorry.

"Excuse me. This is something you two can discuss later. Good night, Nellie."

I grab Theodore, and we walk out of the theater onto the street. "My house?"

"Great." Theodore helps me into the front seat of his truck, which has now turned into a stately carriage that will take me from my dreams to a real place. He climbs in and puts his arm around me as we back out. I think to myself, Time stops when we get what we want.

I haven't made spaghetti since Mama died. I pull out her recipe book. When she found out she was sick, she wrote everything down for me. The writing starts out in good English, then loses its clarity. She tried to finish the task when she was really sick. At the end of the notebook, most of the recipes are in pure Italian.

"Cut up the garlic," I tell Theodore. "The basil's in the window garden. I'll start the water."

Theodore goes about his ch.o.r.es. I notice we're not talking. Is this what happens to folks when things turn physical? Do kisses take the place of words? I think back on my past romances, all so long ago, and they seem insignificant, childish and silly-probably because they were. I wasn't a real woman then, a woman who knew herself. A woman alone in the world, free. Now I am a woman without strings, guilt, or parents, and I don't know what to say. How do I begin?

"How long have your parents been married?" I ask innocently.

"Forty-two years."

"Are they happy?"

"They're perfect for each other. He drinks and she hides it. Why do you ask?"

"We've never talked about it before."

"It seems like we have. I think you know everything about me."

"Have you ever been in love before?"

"Have you?" he asks, quite deliberately not answering me first.

This is a loaded question for me. I don't guess that I have, although there was a nice Polish Catholic guy from Chicago-I met him at a c.r.a.ps table during a Mardi Gras fund-raiser at Saint Mary's. I went with him for a year and a half. He wanted to marry me, but I couldn't see it. When it was over I was sad, but I wasn't broken-hearted.

"I guess I was. Once." I pick up the garlic and swish it into the olive oil in the pan on the stove.

"Only once?"

"Yes."

Theodore mulls this over, and I take a seat at the kitchen table and watch him chop some basil. I wonder if I like him there at the sink chopping. Does he fit in this house? Does he fit in my life? Will we live here in this house when we're married or in his cabin out on Aviation Road? I hear my mother's voice: "Pazienza! Slow down! Think, Ave Maria! Think!"

I straighten the silverware on the placemat. I like two placemats. It looks like a family lives here again. The table holds four. Children! Am I too old? Some of my cla.s.smates from high school have grandchildren. I am not too old. Thank G.o.d I have good Italian genes. No Scotch-Irish wrinkles for me. What am I thinking? What am I saying? I catch my reflection in the steamed gla.s.s of the kitchen window. I am dewy. No! I'm soaking wet! My palms and face are sweating. I'm making myself sick and nervous. I'm a practical person, but I have always tended to daydream, and now I'm picturing myself married to this man and for some reason it's a real romance killer. I don't want to think about marriage just yet-I just want to have some s.e.x. I need to be held! G.o.d help me!

"People are gonna talk about us," I promise him.

"Let them."

"Why are we cooking?" I'm asking this question to be coy and imply, Let's not eat, let's kiss.

"Aren't you hungry?" Theodore asks.

I nod. But I'm hungry for everything: food, him, and all that life has to offer. Everything seems possible to me all of a sudden. How will I tell him?

Theodore continues chopping. What beautiful hands he has! His large hand and squarish fingers are in total control of the paring knife. The motion reminds me of a French movie I saw in Charlottesville once. When I go on buying trips, I make it my business to see foreign movies. We don't get them down here, so they're a treat. French movies always have love scenes in the kitchen. Somebody is eating something drippy, like a ripe persimmon, and next thing you know it's a close-up of lips and hands and off go the lights and their clothes, and pretty soon n.o.body's talking. I check my ceramic fruit bowl on the counter. One black banana. Please don't let this be an omen.

"I haven't . . . Well, I guess what I'm trying to . . ." Theodore keeps chopping. I persist. "What I want to say is . . ."

"I'm thinking, Ave."

It may have been a long time since I've been with a man, but it doesn't take a s.e.x G.o.ddess to figure out that thinking is not a good sign. Men don't think about s.e.x. They think about how and where and when, but they could care less about the why.

"You don't want me," I say plainly, hoping I'm wrong. There, I've said it. The water in the pot is boiling foam. Theodore drops his knife and stirs and blows as bubbles trickle over the sides of the pot. He catches as many as he can with a spoon, but it keeps bubbling.

"Give me a hand."

"You've got it under control." I say this with matter-of-factness, but the truth is, my legs aren't working. I'm in a state of shock, from the ankles up. I just made a statement that scares me, and I need to stay very small, right here in this straight-backed chair, or I'm afraid of what I might do. Theodore moves the pot off the burner. The foam subsides. He pours the spaghetti into the colander in the sink. He shakes it hard. He leaves the pot in the sink and goes to the stove. He stirs the sauce.

"We call that sauce shway shway," I say, making my only contribution to the dinner.

"What is that?"

"It's Italian dialect from where my mama came from. Shway shway means 'fast.' Fast sauce. Instant sauce."

"It tastes great."

"Fresh basil."

Theodore pours the sauce onto the spaghetti. He pulls out plates and forks and sets the table.

"So you want to tell me why you kissed me?"

"You kissed me." Theodore looks at me directly.

"No. You kissed me." Oh G.o.d. I'm yelling.

"I went with the situation. You were kissing me, so I kissed back. And after what Sweet Sue said, I felt you needed to be kissed."

"So you were doing me a favor?"

"Yeah."

This is one of those moments when the steam between a man and a woman creates a wall. It's so thick that I can't make out Theodore's face. I do not understand him; doesn't he know how I feel? I want him. I want this. Where is the kissing Theodore? Where did he go?

"You aren't in love with me, Ave."

"What?"

"You got stirred up, that's all."

"I liked the kiss! It was nice! It was welcome."

"You said you hadn't been with a man in a long time. It's understandable. A cup of water in the desert is welcome, too."

I can't believe what I'm hearing! Theodore is comparing my aching loins to dehydration. This night is not going at all as I had expected.

"What? What?" Why is it that all I can say is What?

"I live alone. I like it. I grew up in a family with nine kids, and I'm still thrilled I don't have to share a bed with someone. I don't want a 'thing.' I like being with you. You are my best friend. I don't want a relationship."

"Everybody wants a relationship!"

"No. You want a relationship."