Fair and Tender Ladies (37 page)

Ivy,
he said.
Wake up. I'm going.

I looked up and he stood there right in front of me. He held out his hand and I took it. He pulled me up. We stood there real close to each other but not touching. We are exactly the same size. It's like he
is
me, some way, or I am him. All he did was look at me, nobody has ever looked at me like that before, or will again. I know this. Nobody.

I thought I would pass out, finally I had to look down. When I looked up, he was gone. Just like that, without a trace. I picked up LuIda and her blanket and walked back to the house thinking,
I must make a picture. I must be a mess.
With my hair straggling wild all down my back and grass stains on my shift.

Right before I got to the house, a bee stung me through my shift. It hurt like blazes.

I got in just before they all drove up. I could hear them down by the creek slamming the car doors, laughing and talking. Then I could hear them getting closer as they walked up the hill to the house. I was pinning up my hair when they got here.

Sweet heavy Edith Fox sat down in a chair and stretched out her legs, which are bad to swell. She started fanning herself.
Hello there Ivy,
she said.
I have brung you some fried peach pies for dinner. Dreama, give her the pies. You look all thin and wore out,
Edith told me.

Dreama handed me the paper sack and I took it on back to the kitchen and put the pies out on a plate. They looked real good. All of a sudden I was starving to death! I went ahead and took one and ate it in three bites with Dreama watching.

It ain't fair,
Dreama said.
You can eat all you want and you don't gain.

That is because I work all the time instead of living with Mama and Papa who do everything for me,
I thought, but did not say it. For all of a sudden, I felt real sorry for Dreama, who is so pale and fat and hasn't got any eyebrows to speak of. Dreama will never feel as I felt this afternoon. Whether it is wrong or right she will never know it, never. She will be fat and bitter, and she will go to her grave this way. Dreama was married once, when she was real young, but he went off to the war and came back a different man. He shut her up in the wardrobe three or four times when he didn't like his dinner, and then he beat her with a mule harness and she ran home where she's been ever since. Oakley and Ray Junior went over there and liked to killed her husband. He left this county then and has been gone ever since. His name was Hubbard Looney. He has been a long time gone. Since then, Dreama has had some boyfriends, but she's too picky.
This one's too lazy, that one's too fat, this one's got a gimpy leg.
Now that she is well past 40, all the lines in Dreama's face go down. She gets harder and harder to please. The truth is, nobody can hold a candle up to Oakley or to Ray Senior, as far as Dreama is concerned. She doesn't really want a man.
If you want a man, you can always get one,
Geneva used to say. I believe this is true. They can tell when you want them, or when you don't. But Dreama still
thinks
she does. She was talking about a man from Saltville who is over here with the power company, that she had met at church.

Do you reckon I would run into him if I went into town myself to pay the light bill?
Dreama asked, for they have got electricity now down on Home Creek, and I said,
Well, I don't know.
But then she said that his adam's apple sticks way out, which she hates in a man. She is so picky. I ate another peach pie. I put the ham and the potato salad and the devilled eggs out on the table. Every time I took a step, my bee sting hurt like crazy. But I didn't want to doctor it or tell anybody. I wanted to keep it a secret. Martha had already made the cornbread. I sent Billy down to the springhouse to get some more butter, and when he came back with it, I went out in the breezeway.

You all come on, I said.

Oakley always says the blessing at the table. But when his daddy is here, his daddy says the blessing and we all hold hands. That is how they do it down on Home Creek. So I held Oakley's hand on one side, his daddy's on the other. Oakley's daddy asked for rain, and peace in our time, and a good tobacco crop, and for Delphi Rolette, who has been real sick, to get better. Then he told God to say hey to Ray Junior in heaven, which he always says. Then he said,
Make us ever mindful Lord of the needs and desires of others, in thy holy name we pray, amen,
which is how he always ends a blessing. Ray Fox could have made a preacher. So could Oakley, of course. But I couldn't keep my eyes shut during the blessing. I couldn't stop thinking about Honey Breeding and how he had looked at me. As soon as Ray Senior was through, I raised up my head and helped everybody's plates and started eating like I was starved.

This is a mighty good ham, honey, Ray Fox Senior said, and I jumped a mile in my chair at the mention of his name.

Thank you sir, I said.

What all did you put on it? Edith asked, and I answered that I boiled it first, yesterday, then I put brown sugar and cider on it to bake it. I could hear my own voice talking but I didn't feel like it was me.

Well it sure is good,
Edith said.

Thank you, Edith,
I said. I kept thinking about Honey Breeding and how he stared. I could feel my bee sting swelling up beneath my skirt. It was starting to hurt real bad. The boys said they were through and could they go down the holler and play cowboys and Indians, and I said yes. I got up and got the jam cake from where I was keeping it down in the cold corner, away from the stove.
Why, looky here!
said Ray Senior. Those boys left too soon.

They can't sit still, I said. They'll get some when they come back. They will be back directly.

I don't like that Susie Ratliff, Dreama was saying about a woman at church. She is too stuck up.

I was rubbing my bee sting which was hurting. Then I looked up and found Oakley staring at me, with his calm brown eyes.
You look kind of hot, Ivy,
he said,
or something.

I am okay,
I said.

I was over at Maureen Gray's when she had a hot flash and shook like a leaf,
Edith said.
Can you pass me another peach pie?
I ate another pie too. Oakley was watching me. I pulled up my dress and felt of the bee sting underneath the table, nobody could see me.
Did I tell you what Bethy Rolette said to me when we were going in the door?
Dreama asked her mother and her mother said, No.
Well I can't believe I didn't tell you,
Dreama said. Then she said,
Bethy came right up behind me and said, Oh Dreama, you look so good from the back! Now, do you think I ought to be mad or not?
Everybody was laughing, even Martha. Then Oakley was telling his daddy about the beehives. Maudy started crying in her bed. I stood up to go and get her. For a minute I just stood there though, and looked around the table. It was something like a hot flash, I think, though I did not shake like a leaf. Everything leaped up at me—Oakley's sweet face, his daddy's big wrinkled hands that never come clean, the shine off Edith's glasses, Dreama's wide white cheeks, Martha's dark pure eyes. Martha's black hair curls around her face, but Dreama and Edith both pull their hair straight back in tight little knots, it is their religion. I looked hard at everybody. Behind the table, out the open door, lay the orchard. I felt of my bee sting, secret under my skirt. I went to get Maudy. I just don't know what will happen.

 

Your sister,

 

IVY.

July 21

 

 

Dear Oakley,

 

I am writing you this note to say that I have gone off on a little walk today. I will be back this evening. Do not worry about me as I remain your loving wife,

 

IVY.

August 14, 1940

 

 

My dear Joli,

 

I do not know what you have heard about me by now, or what I can say

August 23, 1940

 

 

My dear Silvaney,

 

I was washing dishes when he came. I had the dishpan full of water, I was up to my elbows in soap. He came right in the front door without knocking and walked on through the house and came up behind me and poked me in the ribs.
Gotcha,
he said. I knew right away, without turning around, who it was. My heart has been beating too fast ever since I first saw him. When he came for me, it slowed down.

Hidy,
I said, and he said,
Hidy.

I turned around and looked at him good and he said,
You are just as pretty as I remembered.
But the cat had got my tongue, I couldn't say a thing. Martha was in there too, boiling water to scour the pans. She grinned at him.
Hidy,
he said to her, and she put her hand up to hide her mouth, she was giggling so. It was a bright hot day. Usually, Martha is scared of strangers.

I am going to borry the missus here for a hour or two,
said Honey Breeding.
I'll bring her back.

Martha giggled.

When is your old man coming home?
he asked me. He never asked me whether I would go with him or not.

Before long,
I said.
Him and the boys have gone into town for some fence wire.

Well leave him a note,
he said,
and come on. We are going to take us a little walk.

I can't do that,
I said.

Just take off that apron,
he told me,
and come on,
and I did it.

I wrote Oakley a note and told Martha that I would be back after while. I could not afford to worry that she would tell Oakley who I had gone off with. I did it all like a dream.
Here now,
he said. He took my hand. He kept grinning at Martha who grinned back at him like she knew him some way, but she did not. They just hit it off, I reckon.

The paregoric is in the dresser drawer,
I said to Martha,
if you need to give Maudy some. It is in that little carved wooden box that Revel gave Momma.
Maudy had a toothache.

Come on, Ivy,
Honey said. I left the dishes in the sink and followed him out the back door past the lilac.
Bye-bye, bye-bye,
LuIda and Maudy called from the yard. They both love to say Bye-bye.

It was a bright hot afternoon.

Just where do you think we are going?
I said, and Honey Breeding said,
Up this hill.

So we set off on the path through the orchard, past the beegums, and then commenced to climbing Pilgrim Knob.
Right here is where Momma used to keep her chickens,
I said.
I don't know how she did it. Ourn won't stay up here, they cluster around the house. But Momma's chickens were mountain chickens, you couldn't get them down to the house. If you carried them down, they'd run right back up here,
I said.
So we used to have to climb all the way up here to look for eggs,
I said.