Big Stone Gap Part 4

As we eat, I am sure he is right. It is me. I want to be loved. And I want to blame somebody because I'm not. So let me blame my parents. They're easy targets-one never loved me and the other leaves me scary letters after she's pa.s.sed away. Let me blame life. Life keeps interfering in my plans. First Fred Mulligan was sick; then I took care of Mama, business got to booming, and I took on more and more and thought about myself less and less. Poor me. I straighten up in my chair and summon all my self-esteem in my posture. Then, very casually, I lean toward Theodore.

"I can't believe you think I kissed you."

"You did. The whole town got a shock."

I don't care about the whole town. I chew in slow motion because I want to digest all of this. I initiated the kiss? I kissed him? What am I really hungry for?

"You're going to find a good man, you know."

Where? In the Blue Ridge Mountains? On the Trail of the Lonesome Pine? By the banks of the Powell River? Get serious, you transplant from Scranton, PA. Around here, men my age have been married since they were seventeen. Some of them are grandfathers already. There are no men! You are the man! Be my man!

"You'll find somebody," he a.s.sures me.

"Somebody!" Wake up, buster! I'm not the type of woman for a Somebody. I'm picky. I take an hour to eat a tuna-salad sandwich because I pick all the sweet-pickle chunks out of it before I'll take a bite. I'm vain. I cleanse and cream my face twenty minutes before bedtime, and then I hang my head upside down over the side of my bed for an additional five to prevent jowls. I'm a sn.o.b. I want a man who reads. In thirty years I've never seen a man on the Bookmobile, except strange Earl Spivey, but he doesn't count because he's a lurker, not a reader. If this mystery man isn't smart, I don't want him. Why can't Theodore see this?

"Okay, maybe not just somebody. How about a good guy, a real winner? When you kissed me tonight, you were impulsive. Daring. People around here saw you with new eyes. You watch. Something will happen."

"If you say so." I say this so weakly, it's barely audible. Theodore sprinkles cheese on his spaghetti, spins a nice mound of noodles, and eats. He chews normally. Swallows. Like everything is normal! He's ready to change the subject-like it's been discussed thoroughly and there's nothing more to say. He almost seems to be saying, "Okay, we kissed, it was nice, but it's going no further, so let's get back to our friendship."

"Somebody needs to tell Sweet Sue Tinsley she's not the homecoming queen anymore."

This is another reason I want Theodore. I want to be able to come home and dissect everybody and everything. Why can't I have this?

"She's afraid somebody will steal her man away." Theodore shrugs.

Were Theodore and I even at the same event tonight? The crowd was behind Jack Mac asking Sue to marry him; they kissed pa.s.sionately, and it looked all sewn up to me. Am I so deprived of physical intimacy that I did not see this? How un.o.bservant am I? Or am I living in some other universe, one I have created out of my own strange perceptions? I look away, out the window and into my yard, and what I see there is not the Potters' oak tree that grows over the fence but a flash of Jack MacChesney in his underwear, and how strong and bearlike he was, all man, from shoulder to foot. I shake my head to erase the picture. It goes.

"I want to have s.e.x with you tonight." There. I just said it right out. Honestly. Clearly. Directly. Well done.

Theodore puts down his fork (another bad sign). Then he looks at me.

"You're beautiful and desirable. But it wouldn't work. We love each other; we are not in love with each other. If we had s.e.x tonight, sooner or later we wouldn't be friends. I don't want to lose that. Would you?"

Around my fork I have twirled a mountain of spaghetti so large it is the size of a tennis ball.

I say to Theodore: "I wouldn't." But why can't I have both? The lover and the best friend. Isn't that the point? I know what I want. I've had many years to think about it. When I first saw Theodore at the Drama auditions years ago, my heart skipped a beat. "Kindred spirit" doesn't begin to describe our connection.

I unravel the tennis ball of noodles. It makes a square on the plate, like the frame of an open window. In the square, I imagine a cartoon, primitive and bright. A buck-toothed gorilla is being chased by an angry mouse with a giant mallet. The mouse climbs up the gorilla and clunks him on the head repeatedly. The gorilla's eyes cross, and stars shoot out of his head. The image makes me smile, so I won't cry.

CHAPTER THREE.

Fleeta is serious about quitting. I can tell because she has cleaned up the shelf behind the register. Her lifetime supply of c.o.ke and peanuts is gone. Her bifocals are safe in their case. Her paperwork is stacked neatly in two piles. In one stack, her professional wrestling schedules. Fleeta and Portly go to wrestling matches in Kingsport and Knoxville every chance they get. Pictures of the great wrestling stars Haystack Calhoun, Atomic Drop, Johnny Weaver, and the frightening Pile Driver are in protective clear-plastic sleeves. The wrestlers' thick, clublike bodies are greased in oil. Their heads are smaller than their squat, muscular bodies; they look like apples on top of buildings. In the other stack, Fleeta's recipes. When business is slow, Fleeta rewrites her recipe-card file; she's had this project under way for about five years. In Fleeta's block print: MAMAW SKEEN'S POSSUM Skin your possum. Place in a large pot and boil till tender. Add salt and pepper to taste. Make gravy with broth and add 4 tablespoons flour and 12 cup of milk. Cook until thick. Save a foot to sop gravy!

I wonder what they do with the other three feet. I flip through the cards; many of Fleeta's specialties are included: divinity candy, a confection of whipped sugar that looks like clouds (she brings it in every Christmas), lemon squares, cheese straws, peanut b.u.t.ter b.a.l.l.s, and my favorite, rhubarb pie.

"I'm putting my recipes together for my granddaughter, for when she gets murried," Fleeta says as she stands behind me. "You ever ate possum?"

"Not that I know of."

"Well, you're missing out. It's the best, most tenderest meat of all."

Fleeta grabs her smokes and motions for me to meet her in the back office for lunch. She locks the front door and flips the RING BELL sign.

Fleeta sits on a folding chair, smoking. She pours a small cellophane sack of salted peanuts into her gla.s.s bottle of Coca-Cola, stops up the top with her thumb, shakes it, and when it's fizzy chugs it back. I'm going to miss our lunches.

"Fleeta, do you really have to quit on me?"

"Honey, my mama died when she was fifty-five. I'm fifty-six. The clock is ticking. I want a life before mine's over. I will miss the money, though."

"I'll give you a raise."

"Too late for that. Come on, Ave. You got a lot ahead of you. You're gonna get murried to that Tipton fella."

"What?"

"His car was parked over to your house till all hours Sat.u.r.day night, and Nellie Goodloe done spread it all over town that you and he was swapping s...o...b..rs on the dance floor over to the Drama. Now that's public. Don't hold back on me, youngun, I know you too well."

"He doesn't want me, Fleeta. We're just friends."

"No way. Shoot-fire, y'all do everything together. Y'all are each other's destinies." I start to argue with Fleeta, and she stops me. "Even when you put two rats in a box they might chew each other up at first, but give it time and they'll make baby rats."

"Fleeta, I'm eating."

"He's a fine-looking man. And he's clean. I like me a clean man. And he's got nice thick hair, and honey, after thirty you gotta put that in the plus column. He's got them nice Irish looks and features. The rusty hair, the blue eyes. The purty smile. Law me! What more do you want in a man?"

I don't answer her. Nothing! There's no one but Theodore for me. Why won't she stop this?

"Or do you even want a man?" Fleeta looks at me over her bifocals.

"Not just any man," I say defensively, with my mouth full of food.

"I want you to git a good man like I got. You know, Portly and I still have intimate relations. Of course, it takes a lot longer than it used to to warm up my toaster. I done gone through The Change. And that's a good word for it because everything done changed on me. I have to prepare for when he gets that look. But I'll tell you one thing-Portly has him some big clubby forearms and man-hands, you know what I'm saying, he could palm my head-really, just like a basketball. And if I didn't have those gigantic arms wrapped around me of the night, I would be one cantankerous old woman. So I know what you mean."

"How'd you and Portly meet?"

Fleeta exhales and her eyes fill with a faraway memory. She squints to make out the details of this old picture.

"Up to the school. When East Stone Gap High School was closed down, they transferred all them kids over to Powell Valley and Portly was in the bunch. First day of school, I seen him and knew he was the one. I was feeling old, though, like I'd never find n.o.body."

"How old were you?"

"Sixteen. And never been kissed. My mama was so proud of 'at. But let me tell you, when I snagged Portly, I made up for lost time. I remember the very first kiss he done give me. Up behind the bleachers up to the school. Hit was around five o'clock in the afternoon, after Portly's baseball practice. He looked at me. I looked at him. Course we had to take the snuff out of our mouths first-Portly and I both love our chewing tobacky. Well, we spit it out, and then we kissed, and the rest is history."

I'm so wrapped up in Fleeta's love life, I don't hear the persistent bang of the bell on the store counter. I come to and get up to answer it. The majorettes stand at the counter, some reading the National Enquirer, others thumbing through People. Tayloe waits at the prescription-pickup window.

"I'm here for my prescription."

"I'll be right with you, honey."

"It's not ready yet?" The annoyance underscores each of Tayloe's words, and she rolls her eyes. G.o.d, she's impatient. I remember that she's just a kid, and that keeps me from biting her head off.

"No, not yet," I reply gaily.

Pearl Grimes enters the store and, upon seeing the majorettes, instantly skulks behind the hair-care rack.

"Look how fat she got!" Glenda the majorette says with authority. That's all it takes for all the majorettes to gather round People magazine and gloat over the picture of some formerly slim, now chunky TV actress.

"I don't know why somebody'd let themselves go like that," says another.

" 'Cause she likes to eat," Tayloe announces. It's not one bit funny, but all the girls die laughing, because in her circle, Tayloe gets to be funny as well as beautiful.

"She's not as fat as Pearl Grimes, though." A louder laugh.

I see the top of Pearl's head disappear behind the medical-supply rack. I wonder if they saw her come in. Are they that cruel? Mrs. Spivey, Mrs. Holyfield, and Mrs. Edmonds enter the store and split up to shop. Three finer Baptist women I've never known. They're also responsible for spreading more information than the town paper.

"Miss Mulligan, could you please hurry? We've got band practice. You know . . . with Mr. Tipton?" Another round of giggles. I guess they heard about Theodore's car being outside my house till all hours. Now I wish I'd had s.e.x with him, so the joke wouldn't be on me.

I shout out from behind the counter, "It's gonna take a minute, girls." More sighs and eye rolls. They continue reading the magazines.

Fleeta comes out from the back. "Be careful with the magazines; we can't hardly sell wrinkled, used ones. Folks like their reading material virginal. And I can't blame them, as they are paying," she growls.

Inspired by Fleeta's choice of words, I seize my moment. I had a microphone installed in the prescription department because the store is large, and when I get busy I can call for the customer. I blow into the microphone. All the heads look up.

"Tayloe Slagle, your birth control pills are ready at the prescription window. Tayloe. Slagle. Your. Birth. Control. Pills. Come on over."

Tayloe lunges for the window and grabs the white sack.

"They're for cramps."

"Really." I ponder this possibility. The fine Baptist women look at one another and then at Tayloe with such disdain, they become a scary tableau on a stained-gla.s.s window.

"Charge it," Tayloe barks as she sprints for the door. The girls follow her.

I hear the ladies murmuring in the dental-hygiene section-mission accomplished.

Fleeta is chuckling, and of course the chuckles turn into a hack. "I'm done tarred of them girls coming in here and reading and never buying. You got 'em good."

I pick up a basket of conditioner and head for the hair-care aisle. Pearl is sitting on the floor reading labels on the backs of bottles.

"Hey, Pearl."

"I come down for the acne treatment you told me about."

"Then what in G.o.d's name are you doing in hair care?"

Pearl shrugs. Her eyes are a mite puffy, so I know she heard the majorettes.

"You wanna help me restock the shelves?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Fleeta's quitting on me, so I'm looking to hire somebody part-time. You up for it?"

"I have to ask Mama."

"Go call your mama and ask her if you can start today."

"We ain't got no phone. And I don't know if she'd let me take a job. How would I get to and from work?"

"I could take you home after work," I offer.

"But I live up in Insko."

"I drive fast. How much you want an hour? For your pay."

"I don't know."

"Come on, Pearl. You're gonna do sales. Sell yourself."

"Well, I git fifty cents an hour baby-sitting the Bloomer kids."

"Not bad. They're a handful. I guess I gotta do better than Mrs. Bloomer."

"How 'bout one dollar an hour?" Pearl looks away, embarra.s.sed to be talking figures.

"Only a dollar? Hmm. You're a real tail twister, Pearl. How about three dollars an hour?"

Pearl's eyes widen. "Thank you, Miss Ave! Can I start tomorrow?" Pearl straightens her spine, and I swear she grows an inch.

"You sure can."

Fleeta watches Pearl go and lights another cigarette. "Why in holy h.e.l.l would you hire that girl?"

"I like her."

"She don't keep herself nice."

"You heard her. She lives up in Insko."

"I don't care. That ain't no excuse."

"I'm surprised at you, Fleeta. I thought you could see potential."