A Wedding on the Banks (31 page)

They drove countless times past the motel where the car's owner, Junior Ivy, snored in his dreams. They cruised snakily past Marge McKinnon's old house, where Pearl and Marvin slept fitfully, each tossing and turning within their nighttime dramas. They zoomed past Sicily Lawler's house, where Sicily was sleeping peacefully for the first time in weeks, and Amy Joy sat in the blackness of her bedroom and peered with puffy eyes down at the ice cakes dotting the Mattagash River, wondering what it would be like to slip beneath the freezing water and just disappear. Vinal and Pike Gifford made countless trips in their two-hour odyssey past Winnie Craft's house, where Lola sat in the bathroom, with the light out, and counted all the aspirins in the aspirin bottle over and over again as she pondered which would be worse: suicide, or Winnie's discovery that her daughter was an accomplice. The slippery Cadillac cut through the night dozens of times where Kevin Craft had built his home, a one-story modern structure, which predicted folks would start having smaller families, at least if they were going to start living in such flattened-out houses.

“Looks like a goddamn Cracker Jack box,” Vinal said to Pike, as he did most times when they passed Kevin Craft's home. The two brothers did not contemplate the darkness or the silence inside the house, where Kevin sat in the living room, turning his .22 rifle over and over in his lumberjack hands and wondering if it might be enough to do the trick.

“‘The hills are alive with the sound of music,'” Julie Andrews sang for the Giffords in her command performance, and the brothers felt warm, and good, and safe.

“Jesus,” said Pike, after Vinal finally pulled over and let him have his turn behind the wheel. “This must be what it's like to drive the Batmobile.”

“Take it easy, Robin,” Vinal teased, as the Cadillac spun out onto the road in a quick burst of snow. “If we end up in the ditch, who we gonna call to come haul our asses out?”

The Cadillac used up its tank of gas as it traversed the single, ragged road in Mattagash, past the snores of the townsfolk, past the sons of bitches who had put the Giffords down for nearly a hundred and fifty years.

“I wish the old man could see us now.” Pike whistled through his teeth. “He'd be some proud.”

“Listen,” said Vinal. “Whadda ya say, let's do this car with a little class. After all, it's only fitting for a Cadillac.”

“How's that?” asked Pike. His eye on the gas gauge told him whatever they did would have to be soon. But he liked the notion of class. And he liked the classy music. The Giffords had risen in the world.

“First,” said Vinal, as they pulled up to the resting place of the Plymouth, snug and out of sight behind the Mattagash gym, “we'll take the tape deck and that tape of what's her name. Then you get the tools you need to take the radio and aerial.”

“While I'm doing that,” said Pike, “you take these fancy seat covers and floor mats.”

“I'll pry open the trunk,” said Vinal. “He's bound to have more in there than his spare tire.”

“Now what?” asked Pike, as the two brothers stood beside the naked Cadillac. Pike had just finished work on the rearview mirror, and he placed it next to the side-view mirrors, in the Plymouth's trunk. “There's only the tires and battery left,” Pike added. “From what I can see.”

“Here's where the class comes in,” said Vinal. “Here's where we give this old town a little slap in the face.”

“How's that?” Pike asked again.

“First of all,” said Vinal, “we need to make a quick trip home to the woodpile. Then I'll show you.” Before they got back into the Plymouth, Vinal and Pike stood side by side and peed yellow streams down into the snow, that natural
pissoir
.

An hour later Vinal snuggled in next to a warm, sleeping Vera, at the bottom of the hill from his brother, in the heart of Giffordtown. At the top of the hill Pike Gifford was unable to creep into Goldie's bedroom. He had come home feeling particularly poetic and successful, and less drunk than usual. He had even slipped off his heavy boots at the bottom of the stairs and crept quietly past the other bedrooms where his children dreamed of better lives. He was happily whistling “The Lonely Goatherd” and wondering what it would be like to slip into bed with Julie Andrews when he discovered that Goldie had locked the bedroom door. Another night Pike would have kicked the son of a bitch down, would have slapped Goldie around until she cried, or he got tired of hitting her. Whichever came first. But tonight was different. Tonight he and Vinal had cruised in a fancy car, had listened to some upper-class music, had bit into and then tasted what it was like to be rich. And then, maybe because of all that, they had left the evening behind them with a touch of class.

“‘Men drinking beer with their poles afloat heard,'” Pike sang under his breath. “‘Lay ee odl lay ee odl-oo.'” He went down to curl up on the car-seat sofa in the living room.

And the interstate rumbles like a river that runs

To a rhythm that don't ever slow down.

As cars and trucks and time pass by that old coyote town…

—“Old Coyote Town,” written by Paul Nelson, Gene Nelson, and Larry Boone

The first creature stirring as dawn crept in over the ragged tops of the pines to splash Mattagash awake was the northern raven. It rode the rising air currents high above the Mattagash River and gazed down on the gymnasium with its sharp, black eyes, searching for shapes and angles that would register food in its brain. But all that caught its eye were several pink-tissue carnations rolling along the snow in a small wind, cascading after each other until they disappeared in the clumps of dead burdocks along the riverbank. These were the only remnants of the wedding reception, except for one brown bow, which had caught in a cluster of bare hazelnut bushes by the old American Legion Hall and was flapping alone in the morning light. It had blown from Girdy Monihan's present, the one she carefully took back into her house before the reception, the can opener she would now give Peggy Mullins who was scheduled to marry in June. The raven swooped down closer.
Prruk. Prruk.
It could have been a mouse, a sparrow, a fat doughnut, but the bird's keen intelligence assured it that this was something inedible, some little knickknack left by the humans and meaningful only to them. Its eyes caught the slow movement of a coyote, lean and hungry, which had moved to the hardwood ridge on the opposite bank to sit on its haunches and peer intently across the spring river at the town. Like the native Indian, the coyote was a lonesome relic of the past, and it moved back into the piney shadows, found a trail of fresh deer tracks, and was gone. The raven circled, still. The only car tracks near the gymnasium that had not been eaten alive by the snow were those of Vinal and Pike Gifford. The two thin lines from the Plymouth's tires lay below the bird like clothesline ropes stretching out of the gymnasium yard and onto the raggedy road to mischief. Two empty beer cans caught the first light as the raven swooped back again for a closer inspection. But the metallic creatures were useless to it as they lay beside the frozen yellow eyes in the snow where Pike and Vinal had relieved themselves. With no sign of roadkill along the crooked highway, the raven arched back up to the next thermal and did a series of acrobatic tumbles and rolls, then fell away in the direction of St. Leonard. Beneath its wings, inside the solid wooden houses built from the same forest that engulfed them, the people came to life.

Peter Craft, Winnie's nephew, was soon counting ones and fives and tens into the cash register at his filling station. With one hand, Albert Pinkham was holding a cold wet towel against the bluish lump throbbing on his temple, and then to the large lump on the back of his head. With the other hand he dumped dog food into Bruce's empty plate. At her grocery, Betty was stocking the shelves with pouches of chewing tobacco and heavy work gloves, her biggest sellers at that time of morning. Kevin Craft, Winnie's nephew, rolled over on the sofa, the .22 rifle lying like a woman by his side, lying like Bonita, cold to his touch, explosive. Lola Craft, Winnie's daughter, had fallen asleep while counting aspirins the way insomniacs count sheep. After cooking breakfasts and seeing their husbands off to the woods with bulging lunch pails, wives could go back to bed until six, when the children would need to be roused for school. Those few households not touched by the woodsworking business stayed peaceful as five o'clock brought the first strains of daylight through the pines, followed by the face of the constant sun itself as it skirted the horizon and rose up to a full ball. As the woodsmen drove into the morning glare, into the heart of their jobs, their work, their forest, Sicily slept on, and so did Marvin and Pearl. So did Junior and Thelma, and Monique Tessier, who, like Marvin Ivy, had a busy day ahead of her. Even Amy Joy slept, having stayed awake, having cried, until 4:00 a.m. From exhaustion Amy Joy slept, but instead of wedding dreams, instead of bridal bouquets and baby carriages, she dreamed death dreams, bullets and noises, and muffled voices she could not identify. As the sun blazed up red, pulling a red morning sky behind it, the lumberjacks drove in battered pickups and pulp trucks past the Albert Pinkham Motel. They saw the fancy Cadillac right where the Giffords had left it, beached upon four hardwood blocks, without tires, without any accoutrements, and their fenderless trucks suddenly felt rich beneath them, and they drove on with a sudden pride in their occupations, in themselves. Sometimes, city folks and tourists left other things behind besides their trash.

It was just a few minutes after eight o'clock when Winnie Craft, who had already been on the phone for a half hour, broke down and called Sicily. Winnie wanted to be the first person Sicily spoke to, and by the sound of Sicily's sleepy hello, she was positive she'd beat out everyone else.

“Beautiful day, ain't it?” Winnie inquired.

“It sure is.”

“Looks like spring is finally here this time.”

“I think it really is,” agreed Sicily.

“She finally did it,” Winnie said.

“Who?” asked Sicily. “What?” Winnie Craft, like most Mattagash women, parceled out gossip like puzzle pieces until at last the whole picture fitted nicely together.

“Bonita,” Winnie said.

“What did she do?” asked Sicily.

“Kevin's mother called me and told me. I just barely hung up the phone from talking to her when I called you.”

“What did she do?” Sicily knew, of course, or suspected, but she didn't want her info any faster than Winnie was willing to deliver it. Excitement flowed along the wires, along the gray telephone poles, between the two women.

“She told Kevin she wants a divorce,” Winnie said finally.

“Well,” said Sicily. “I must say I'm not surprised.”

“Me neither,” said Winnie.

“How's Kevin taking it?”

“Alice says he's going to Connecticut and look for a job in construction. Ain't that a shame, though?”

“Poor man. He'll miss them kids.”

Winnie wanted desperately to hear tidings of Amy Joy and to get Sicily's feelings on the issue. Then she could happily call Claire Fennelson and say, “Beautiful day, ain't it? Looks like spring is finally here, don't it? I just barely hung up the phone from talking to Sicily.” Then she could sit back with her morning coffee and let Claire beat the latest news out of her, as if she were a rug. But Sicily gave her no such relief.

“I've got a cake in the oven, Winnie,” Sicily said instead. “I gotta run.”

Winnie hung up the phone with a plunk.

“Cake in the oven at eight o'clock in the morning, my foot,” said Winnie. How could she call Claire now? What would she say? “Nice day! Spring's here! Guess what! You'll never believe this, but Sicily's got a cake in the oven!” What if Sicily talked to Claire or Girdy or Edna-Bob first and
they
called Winnie with the breaking story? Winnie thought about this.

“I'll just tell them I couldn't care less,” Winnie decided. “I'll tell them all that Sicily Lawler is my best friend and has been for years, and that I have no intention of gossiping about her, or poor little Amy Joy for that matter.” Amy Joy. Maybe Lola, when she finally got up at the crack of noon, would at least have the latest scoop on the jilted bride. Winnie would just watch
Captain
Kangaroo
and wait, damn it.

***

Junior was freshly shaved and dressed, his corpulence partially hidden in a dark striped suit, when he stepped outside his room at the Albert Pinkham Motel. He was to meet his father at Una's Valley Cafe for a hearty breakfast, the kind the local potato farmers put away each morning, and then together they would inspect Watertown's only funeral home. All night, even as the Cadillac was being deflowered, he had dreamed of his father Marvin dangling a big silver key just out of his reach. It was only when Junior got good footing on something solid beneath him that his fingertips reached the key and it fell into his grasp. His own funeral home! When he looked down to see what his footstool had been, he saw that he was standing on Monique Tessier's back.

“If that's what it takes,” Junior had told himself while he shaved, remembering the symbolic dream, “then I'll do it. I'll step on anyone I have to, especially her. And today I'll tell the old man the truth. I'll tell him I want my family back together too, like
he
wants. And I'll tell him Monique is here in Mattagash looking for trouble. Then I'll go to the Watertown police station and get that little son of a bitch out of jail. The old man won't even have to know.”

Now Junior stood on the snowy walkway outside room number 1 and stared with popping eyes at what was left of his precious treasure. He felt his heart doing the same acrobatic flip-flops as the raven had done. He felt little firecrackers going off inside his temples. He tried to breathe deeply, as his eyes caressed the bruised body, filled the gaping holes, soothed the obvious cuts and scratches. His 1969 cream-colored Cadillac up on blocks like something you might see on television from Appalachia. Or in a Gifford's yard. Junior sensed a bad case of hyperventilation coming on. A pickup went slowly past the motel, with Bert Fogarty and Herb Fennelson peering out their windows until the horn sounded rudely and the driver yelled, “Get a Ford!” at Junior. Junior's neck bristled as the small needlelike hairs stood on end. His breathing returned to normal. He had to think. This obviously wasn't Randy's doing. Randy was in jail. Not only that, Randy was an idiot. This was the work of professionals. How could Randy remove a radio, an aerial, a rearview mirror? Randy still thought cars were born all in one piece, for Chrissakes, in some goddamn huge cabbage patch, in Detroit maybe.

“Giffords,” Junior said with disgust, and the word stuck like welfare peanut butter to his tongue.

***

Thelma left her place at the window and slipped into the bathroom. Now that Junior was safely out of range, she popped a Valium into her mouth and felt it stick to her throat. She drank more water to dislodge it, as she wondered why Junior had treated his beloved Cadillac so shabbily.

“He'll have
me
up on four blocks one day,” Thelma decided with certainty, “if I'm not careful.”

***

“Need a ride?” a cheery voice rang out behind him. Junior spun around to see Monique Tessier, dressed to kill in what looked like an honest-to-God business suit. “Looks like you're having a little road trouble.”

Junior bit his lip. Even though he intended to dump her, he was embarrassed for his ex-mistress to see him thusly, the mark of his manhood displayed limp, useless, before him.

“Yes,” he said to Monique Tessier. “I need a ride to Una's Valley Cafe in Watertown.” And for the second time since he decreed
I
will
never
get
inside
your
car
again, so don't plead
, Junior got into Monique's old Buick and they went off down the road like a regular married couple.

***

Pearl watched Marvin drive off for his appointment with his son.

“I hope they don't buy it,” Pearl thought. “I don't want Junior and Thelma so close to Mattagash. Forgive me, Lord, for even thinking it, but it's true.” The phone blared. Sicily.

“How are you gonna handle this?” Pearl asked her younger sister.

“Well, I've been thinking about it,” Sicily said, “and I'm gonna handle it just the way Marge would. I'm gonna pretend it never happened.”

“Bully for you!” said Pearl. “And Amy Joy?”

“To tell you the truth, I think she cares more about what Dorrie Fennelson will say than the whole town,” Sicily told Pearl. “But I know Amy Joy. It won't be long before she'll put it all behind her.”

“Bully for her, too!” said Pearl. Amy Joy had some pioneer blood in her veins after all.

When she and Sicily finished chatting, Pearl stood for a while and watched a flock of snow buntings rise up in a graceful arc to catch the sun. They shimmered white, like porcelain birds, then disappeared. Maybe back to the Arctic, now that spring was coming.

Pearl fixed a second cup of coffee and looked out the back window at the old summer kitchen. There had been so much racket out there the night before that she thought the roof might come crashing down on the ghostly revelers. Marge, Marcus Doyle, and friends. Even Marvin had finally noticed it, coming out of a deep sleep to mutter, “What?”

“Go back to sleep,” Pearl had told him. “It's nothing.” She no longer wanted to share the secret of the summer kitchen with her husband, but to protect him from it. It was, after all, her problem.

Pearl noticed that Marge's old curtains hung in the windows of the summer kitchen with the stiffness that comes with accumulated dust and cobwebs. As soon as spring was really here, which was soon judging by how fast the sun was gobbling up the last snow, Pearl would venture into Marge's old domain and give it a thorough cleansing. She'd take Lestoil and Windex and S.O.S. pads to all the ghosts. She'd fling open the windows and exorcise all the past sins that had occurred among the three sisters. Surely that was the thorn in Marge's side, if ghosts still had sides, which was causing her such unrest, and not the tattered love letters. She had gone to her grave with much anger in her heart, anger at Pearl and Sicily and the old reverend.

“She missed out on her own life to raise me and Sicily,” Pearl thought. “And yet we never once thanked her for it.” She wondered if Sicily ever did, once Pearl had run off to Portland and found refuge in the Ivy Funeral Home. Ah-ha! She'd said it herself.
Run
off
to
Portland.
The very words that used to send her into a tizzy if they came from Marge's or Sicily's lips had now come from her own.
Run
off.
Run away. Run from. It was true. Her sisters had been right after all. But which was the better of two failures, then? Was running away any worse than being too frightened to run at all? That was the affliction that killed Marge young, at barely fifty-nine years of age.