Earthly Vows (9 page)

“Fern’s a good woman,” said Jeb.

“She’s got eyes for you, I’ll say that. The whole time we talked, she never took her eyes off you.”

Jeb slid his glass across the table to the waiter, who filled it again.

“You like our little city, Reverend?”

He did not have to keep Marion occupied. As soon as she asked him something else, her eyes would fall on another of her friends
and she would shout down the table, engaged in a new story.

Fern twirled under Henry’s arm, an old dance step, but she had it right. It was not his first time to watch Fern dance. Henry
snapped her out at arm’s length and she laughed. Jeb finally looked back at Marion. “I like the city fine, Mrs. Oakley.” He
hadn’t known until now that he did like Oklahoma City. “Folks don’t seem quite as desperate here as back home in Nazareth.
I don’t know if you’ve heard, but there’s a Depression on.”

Marion laughed. “Waiter, how about a slice of key lime pie for the minister?”

Jeb saw that she was waiting for his approval. “Sure, I’d like that,” he said.

The waiter served him and then Marion said, “There’s desperate people here too, just like around the rest of the country.
Migrants mostly. They’ve camped in tent cities around our city limits.”

“We saw them.”

“Folks around here don’t like it. They call them freeloaders. I don’t know how I feel about that. I guess you being a minister
and all you have some things to say about that.”

“I preach all the time. I’d rather hear what you have to say.”

“You are a smart man, aren’t you? Henry and I once knew hard times. We weren’t raised with a silver spoon like the rest of
this bunch. Both of us worked to put him through law school. Our first home was an upstairs room in a boardinghouse. We didn’t
have two nickels to rub together. So I downright hurt for those families.”

The dance ended. Fern and Donna met in the center of the floor and then turned away from the Oakleys’ table to go and freshen
up. Henry sat down on the other side of Jeb and explained how the church committee voted in a new minister. His coffee cup
was refilled. Jeb took a sip and then pushed it aside.

Henry asked, “Has anyone seen Senator Baer?”

“He’s gone home to be with his wife,” said Jeb.

One of Marion’s friends seated herself on the other side of Jeb. She was out of breath from dancing. “Anna’s not gotten out
much since she fell ill.”

“The senator’s wife is sick?” asked Marion.

“She’s not expected to live. You knew that, didn’t you?”

Fern leaned against Jeb in the elevator.

Donna reached for her purse.

“Donna, don’t light up another of those things. You smell like the Devil,” said Fern.

He had not seen Fern so harsh with her sister before.

Donna’s hand froze inside her purse. She withdrew it and then leaned against the back of the elevator. “For a minute, I thought
Abigail had gotten in this elevator.”

Jeb held Fern’s hand. Her skin was cold. She stared up at the elevator dial over the door. A silver bracelet jingled out of
her sleeve, exposing small gem droplets, emeralds and sapphires hanging from the bracelet.

She drew that hand up into her shawl.

“That’s a nice piece of jewelry. Is that your mother’s?” asked Jeb.

Donna leaned forward and lifted Fern’s shawl. She looked at Fern and said, “That’s the bracelet Daddy bought you one year.
Wasn’t it a birthday gift when we were in college? I thought you’d lost it.”

Fern touched the gems. “So did I.” She and Donna exchanged glances.

Jeb said, “Did you find it at your mother’s place?”

Fern let out a breath. She closed her eyes and the elevator doorbell sounded.

“Here’s our floor,” said Donna.

Jeb walked them both to their room. Fern unlocked the door. Before she could open it fully, Jeb placed his hand atop hers,
on the doorknob.

“I’m tired,” said Fern.

“I think you’re right about something.” Jeb opened the hotel room door all the way.

Fern looked at him.

“We should have stayed back in Ardmore.”

“We all need rest,” said Donna. She put her arm around Fern’s back and they disappeared into the room.

It was just as well. The more talking he did, the more Fern retreated.

He remembered the first time he saw her. She wore linen. He caught trout in the stream behind Church in the Dell. The water
rushed around his boots as he messed with a trotline and then looked up to see a being of light, her heels planted in the
grass. It seemed it was morning and the sun was up and shining across her face. She was sure of herself.

Before she disappeared into the hotel room, her shoulders were stooped and she looked as though she had lost bits of herself
along the highway between Arkansas and Oklahoma.

Jeb knocked on her door. Donna answered and he said, “I need Fern.”

The room was quiet behind Donna. Finally Fern appeared.

“You forgot to say good night,” said Jeb.

Fern stepped out into the hallway. The color on her cheeks had rivulets of white.

“I love you, Fern.” He held her.

“I don’t know why.” She was crying.

He kissed her. When he drew back to look at her, he tasted salt and lipstick.

Donna closed the door behind her.

“I’ll take you home right now, Fern, if that’s what you want.”

She wiped her eyes with the lapel of her robe. “Jeb, it’s your turn to do what you want. I’m not telling you what to do.”

“I’m not going to wreck us, Fern,” said Jeb.

“You’re not, you’re not. Don’t be this way. I’ll get some rest. Tomorrow I’ll be different. You study for Sunday. We’ll do
this, Jeb. I never thought I’d see you behind a city pulpit. But I should have, I should have known. I’m proud as can be.
Shame on me for not saying so sooner.” She kissed him again, her lips warm and swollen from crying. She slid her tongue between
his lips and pressed herself against him.

“Come with me, to my place,” he said. He held her face in his hands.

She pressed against him and his back went against the wall. She kissed him again. Then she let go of him, brought her hands
to her face, and laughed. “You’ll never finish that sermon with me around.” She walked back to her door and knocked for her
sister.

Donna opened the door. Her hair was tied up in rags. “May I help you?”

Fern took the door handle and said her good-nights. Behind the door, Donna muttered, “You look miserable.” The door closed.
The sound of the lock clicking into place told Jeb that the night was ended. He waited until he heard Fern and Donna laugh
from inside the room.

He rode the elevator back up to the top floor and walked down the hallway and out into the rooftop garden. The clouds had
cleared and the moon was nearly whole, like it had filled up with air and might break open. He stood on the spot warmed by
Fern not an hour ago.

A waiter called from the glass doors, Indian-looking in the face. His open necktie hung loosely down his shirt. “I’m supposed
to lock up. But I can come back if you need some more time. You going to be out here awhile, sir?”

“Five minutes, okay?” asked Jeb.

“Sure, glad to oblige. Want me to get you a drink, last call? You look like you need a whiskey.”

Jeb turned it down, but thanked him. There was the scent of Fern’s perfume hanging around. He smelled one of his cuffs. Her
lipstick had smudged the sleeve.

Only an occasional car rattled past below. A flock of rock doves settled and nested along the roof. He tried to recall some
of his sermon ideas, but Fern kept sifting into his thoughts. The door opened again and a woman’s voice called. He turned,
hoping that she had followed him and was still wearing that bathrobe and tasting of salt.

“Only me. I’m a maid here. The bartender asked me to come and lock up. Are you all right?” she asked.

“I needed some air is all.” He gave the girl two bits for her time. He left the garden and took the elevator back to his floor.
No light shone under Fern’s door.

He did not know what he would say to her in the morning. But in a few days she would marry him. Weddings fix things, he had
heard.

When he finally fell asleep, he slept restlessly, waking up a couple of times, but then falling into a deep hibernation, which
shut his mind down and gave him blessed peace. He did not wake up again until the sun was shining through the window shades,
reminding him that summer still lingered while the sameness of life evaporated.

O
UTSIDE, PLANTING HIS FEET ON THE
downtown sidewalk, Jeb watched the sun coming up. He could set his watch by the sun in August. He sniffed deeply, enjoying
the café smells mingling with car exhaust. First one automobile and then another motored by,
click-and-click-and-clack.
The rubber tires rhythmically hammered the dusty brick streets.

A pencil salesman held out his cup. “Three for a penny,” he told Jeb. He did not sound like an Okie, more like a Kansas boy,
a bit of spit and polish to his manner. His suit was pinstriped, frayed at the jacket sleeves. His necktie was expertly tied
and his shirt and trousers neatly pressed.

As Fern approached, Jeb dropped a penny into the cup, but turned down the pencils. The man insisted Fern take the pencils,
not wanting a handout. She accepted them and put another coin in his cup. Fern gave Jeb the newspaper she bought from a paperboy
on the corner. “We’d best go inside. Donna’s already ordered breakfast,” she said. Donna held a table inside the Coffee Shop.

Two Indians in feathered derbies conversed in the lobby, stepping out of the way to tip their hats at Fern.

“The cook’s out of biscuits, but they have hotcakes,” said Donna.

Jeb sat between them, facing the windows street-side. The Coffee Shop’s waiter gave him his order of pancakes and filled his
coffee cup. A blue dish of grits was placed next to the breakfast plate.

“I haven’t had a Sunday breakfast like this since I started teaching,” said Donna. “Remember that restaurant, Fern, that Mother
and Daddy took us to when we were small, that one up in Vermont? Didn’t they make their own syrup? Taste this and see if it
isn’t as good.”

Fern accepted the forkful of pancake from her sister and then said to Jeb, “Did you find the church out on your walk yesterday?”

“Three blocks from here. If you can’t get there in those shoes, I can order a cab if you want.” Jeb mixed his eggs with the
grits.

Fern had changed out of her teaching shoes. She glanced down at her upturned heel. “I can walk. Donna, you going?”

“Sure. I need a little religion in my life,” she said.

Fern picked up the saltshaker. She had replaced the bracelet she wore Friday night with a snug gold rhinestone bracelet.

Jeb touched it and stroked her wrist.

“Do you like it?” she asked. “I bought it yesterday. Donna and I found a shop where an old woman makes every piece of jewelry
by hand.”

“Where? In the hotel?”

“No, two blocks west of here,” she said.

“So you must have seen the church.”

“I don’t think we went that far, did we, Donna?”

“It’s a whole block farther,” said Donna.

“I look forward to seeing it today, Jeb. You know that, don’t you?” asked Fern.

“I only meant that since you were so close, it seems you would have taken a walk around the place. You like gardens. The church
is surrounded by trees and flowers.”

She turned her hand up and clasped his hand. “You’re right, I should have gone there already. I can’t wait to see it.” Her
eyes lifted.

“Yesterday, seeing the church gardens, it came to me how little has been given to Church in the Dell.”

“God prayed in a garden, didn’t he?” asked Donna. “Is that what you-all are talking about?”

“If the people are happy, what’s the difference?” asked Fern.

Jeb nodded, absentminded and staring out at the main drag, the Sunday drivers increasing in number. “The churches like First
Community were few and far between where I grew up. Until now, I never gave much thought to steeples and gardens.” He picked
up his Bible and said, “I’d like to go early and see the inside of the sanctuary. Join me when you finish, ladies.”

“It’s still an hour until service time,” said Fern.

“The two of you can come when you’re ready.” He rose and pretended not to notice how they stared after him.