Rain (3 page)

"Yes, ma'am," said Malcolm with a somewhat overenthusiastic grin. "Mama, you are pinching me!"

Queenie let go of her son's arm.

"Queenie and I will take care of the wedding together," Elinor announced gravely. "Miriam, I think you've made a wise choice. We don't need any outsiders in this family." As she said this, she placed her hand gently over Billy Bronze's at her side, as if to reassure him that she did not think of him in that light.

Lilah, who sat next to her father on the other side, looked up at him and whispered, "Daddy, are you disappointed?" She didn't mean for anyone else at the table to hear her question, but they all did.

Billy laughed and put his arm around Lilah. "Lord, no!" he exclaimed. "I've got Miriam on my back enough as it is! You think I want to live with her? Malcolm, you're going to have a rough row to hoe!"

Malcolm only grinned. "I'm gone be forty next month. Miriam's gone be thirty-seven in the spring. 'Bout time we settled down."

"Almost too late to have children," sighed Queenie. "I was hoping for another little grandchild. But, Miriam, if you got started quick—"

"Queenie, you shut up about children," said Miriam. "I see one of those things in my house, I'm gone be using its head for a pincushion. Malcolm, don't you let Queenie put any ideas in your head about giving her grandchildren, because nobody is going to force me into a maternity wardrobe."

"Malcolm," asked Oscar, "where do you and Miriam intend on living?"

"Oscar, don't start asking me questions about all this. I just now found out about it myself. You want information, you ask Miriam. Miriam," he said diffidently, "you thought about where you want us to live?"

"I don't know," said Miriam. "Sister doesn't have a very high opinion of you, and I don't know how she'd take you moving in over there. And your mama wouldn't particularly care to have me underfoot." Here Queenie began a protest, but Miriam cut her off. "Don't bother to say anything sweet, Queenie, 'cause nobody at this table would believe it."

"I wasn't gone ask you to come live with me, Miriam. I was just gone ask you if you had spoken to Sister about any of this?"

"I have not," said Miriam. She pushed back her chair. "So I guess I better do that right now. Tell Zaddie to keep some coffee warm. I don't know how soon I'll be back."

Sister didn't like it one little bit. Miriam sat in a straight-backed chair by the door and fiddled with the dial on the radio, though she didn't turn on the set. Sister railed.

"I thought you were gone marry Billy!" cried Sister. "Billy's a man! Malcolm Strickland is no good, and has been no good since the day Queenie Strickland set foot in Perdido. I first saw Malcolm at Ge-nevieve's funeral, and I said to Mama, 'Mama, that child is gone come to no good.' It was James and Dollie Faye Crawford kept that boy out of prison. It was you and Billy got him out from behind the counter of a barbecue joint in Mississippi. It has taken all the Caskeys together to keep that boy out of trouble for the past ten years."

"Malcolm's not a boy anymore, Sister. Malcolm's gone be forty years old next month."

"And what does he have to show for it?"

"He doesn't need anything to show for it. We're all rich, and perfectly capable of taking care of him. He's a lot of help around here, you know. He does lots of things that need doing. He keeps the roof in repair. He goes out and buys light bulbs. Why, he was in here last week, killing a bat that came down your chimney. You were glad enough to see him then."

"Oh, he's fine when it comes to killing bats," said Sister sarcastically, "But I don't know that that's much of a recommendation when it comes to marriage."

"I've met plenty of men who weren't even that much use," Miriam said. "At any rate, it doesn't really matter to me what you've got to say about it, Sister, 'cause I've made up my mind to marry Malcolm. And that's what I'm gone do."

"When did he ask you?" said Sister after a moment. Curiosity had got the upper hand over displeasure.

"Last week. Last month. Last year. Malcolm's been asking me to marry him for ten years. Malcolm brings me my mail in the morning, and says, 'Good morning, Miriam. Will you marry me?'"

"They why did you all of a sudden say yes?"

"Because I looked at my birth certificate the other day and I saw how old I was and I thought, It's about time, Miriam. And one day, I walked in here, and I saw how old you were, Sister."

"How old I am!"

Miriam nodded. "And I thought, Someday Sister's gone die, and then I'm gone be left all alone."

This casual observation about her mortality shocked Sister into a horrified silence. When she finally spoke her voice was weak and she was not at all to the point. "Miriam, will you please keep your hands off that radio. You are driving me crazy."

Miriam dropped her hand from the dial and then continued, glancing out the window as she spoke. "I've never lived by myself. I got to thinking what it would be like to be in this house all by myself. And I don't think I'd like it. I'd probably go crazy. And I'm much too busy to waste my time going crazy."

"So why didn't you just wait till I was dead before you got married?" said Sister. "Then you wouldn't have to deal with Malcolm until you had gotten me out of the way."

Miriam laughed. "Oh, Sister, you don't bother me anymore. And neither does Malcolm."

"I don't think I want Malcolm Strickland in this house," said Sister. "His tread is too heavy."

"Then we'll move in next door with Queenie and leave you here alone."

"No!" shouted Sister, suddenly panicked. "Miriam, why don't you put off the marriage for a little while?"

"Till you're dead?"

"No," answered Sister, calming a bit, "just till I'm used to the idea. Just for a little while, Miriam. I'm confined to this bed. It's so hard for me to change. I cain't even think of you getting married. You're still my little girl."

Miriam turned from the window and smiled.

"What are you laughing about?" demanded Sister.

"At you. You're trying to get me to put off my wedding, just like Grandmama tried to get you to put off your wedding to Early."

"Mama was right! See what a mess I made of it? If I had listened to Mama, I'd be a happy woman today! So you ought to listen to me, and put this wedding off. Just for a while. Just till you've thought about it some more."

"No," said Miriam easily, walking toward the door. "I've made up my mind, and that is that."

And that was that. The ability the Caskeys had to astonish Perdido seemed inexhaustible. The announcement of the engagement of Malcolm Strickland and Miriam Caskey was a source of vast wonder in the town. Previously there had been two local theories when it came to the question of Miriam's marriage. Half the town thought she would marry Billy Bronze, and the other halfcvas certain she would never marry at all. That she would marry Malcolm Strickland was a possibility that had occurred to no one. The only satisfactory explanation Perdido could come up with was that Malcolm had raped Miriam, and that she was pregnant.

Miriam wasn't a woman for long engagements. She announced that the wedding would take place two days after Christmas, a date she chose for the practical reason that her calendar was clear for the holiday and the few days on either side of it. "I have no intention," Miriam told her mother, "of calling up people in Houston and New York to rearrange my appointments just because I'm getting married."

That gave Elinor and Queenie just two months to make all the arrangements, but they went at it with a will. The wedding itself—like all the Caskey ceremonies—was to be a small and private affair, held at ten in the morning in the living room at Elinor's. The reception, however, was a different matter. It was Queenie's idea, originally, that for a change they should throw a proper party—"With everybody in Perdido and beyond invited," as she put it. Queenie had really never expected Miriam to go along with this idea for a minute; she had been certain that Miriam would want everything as brief and casual as possible. But Miriam surprised her future mother-in-law. "Good idea. Invite everybody," she said. And everyone was invited. More than five hundred invitations to the reception went out. Miriam was a businesswoman, and as such she was well known all over southern Alabama, the Florida panhandle, and much farther afield. She recognized that she had a position to maintain, and that position dictated that her wedding be in keeping with her stature. The bridegroom, it was true, was not all that he might have been, but all Miriam's business associates had seen Malcolm in tow at one time or another. Most, if the truth be told, conjectured that Miriam kept him around for more reasons than the fact that he knew how to change a light bulb.

Oscar was away much of the time between the announcement of Miriam's engagement and the wedding itself. Elinor saw to that; she wanted him out of the way so that she could do what needed to be done. She suggested that he see what the golf courses were like in Kentucky, and Luvadia allowed her son Sammy to accompany Mr. Oscar as his caddy. Oscar's eyes were poor, and he needed someone who was familiar and patient with his infirmity. For those two months, Oscar and Sammy—who was only fourteen, and illegally out of school for this time—drove around Georgia and South Carolina, and Oscar played at country clubs and public links all over both states. Oscar put up in motels and hotels, sneaking Sammy to his room at night, the boy sleeping on the floor, rolled in blankets. Oscar called Perdido every day and asked Elinor if things had quieted down enough for him to come home. Her invariable reply was, "Stay away as long as you can, darling. You'll just be trampled underfoot down here."

Miriam wouldn't help with anything, but insisted on maintaining her schedule at the mill. She and Malcolm and Billy made two trips to Houston, and one to Atlanta in those short eight weeks. Her wedding dress was fitted in her office while she was recording letters into a Dictaphone.

Malcolm was helplessly happy. He could scarcely believe his good fortune. He worried a bit about whether or not he would make a good husband, but then reflected that this was none of his concern, really. Miriam would make of him what she wanted. With this bolstering reasoning, he gave himself up completely to his contentment. His relationship with Miriam was unchanged, with a single exception:

when he and Miriam and Billy traveled together, it was now Malcolm and Miriam who put up in the double room and Billy who took single. Before, Billy had always shared the room with Miriam. Queenie had once asked Miriam why she didn't let Malcolm and Billy share the double on these trips, and take the single herself. That surely had a better appearance. Queenie had received an unexpected reply: "Queenie, the truth is that I'm afraid to sleep alone. And I'm old enough and rich enough to do what I want."

Malcolm, now that he shared a room with Miriam, made no attempt to sleep in her bed. He would be guided by her in that business as well.

Queenie remained bewildered by all these new circumstances. But she stayed busy—there was so little time, and so much to be done—and gave herself little time for reflection. Nevertheless, when she sat still for a few moments, she could scarcely credit her son's engagement. He wasn't marrying Miriam for her money, of that Queenie was certain. Queenie herself was rich now, and she had assured Malcolm that her will provided amply for him. She could not bring herself to believe, however, that Malcolm really loved his bride-to-be. Yet perhaps he did, and perhaps she even loved him. Queenie would sigh. All this was beyond her, and it was much easier to worry about getting the napkins printed in time.

On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, Lucille and Grace hosted a shower for Miriam, and every woman of any social standing in Perdido was pleased to attend. Lucille and Grace had always been reclusive outside the family, and many in Perdido had never visited Gavin Pond Farm before. The place was changed out of all recognition from what it once had been. The little farm house that pregnant Lucille had entered with such misgiving fourteen years before had been spruced up and added onto in so many different directions that it looked like a different place altogether. A blacktop lane lead to it from the main road, there was a huge brick patio and a large swimming pool. Two acres of woods had been cleared for a camellia garden, and Lucille was busily establishing some of the rarest species known. An enormous herd of cows grazed in the pecan orchard, and the place boasted three cars, two trucks, two tractors, and five different boats. At night, the sky south of Gavin Pond Farm was orange with the light of the burn-off flares of the oil wells in the swamp.

Grace was forty-six, thinner than any Caskey had ever been—gaunt, actually. She was burned by the sun, and made happy by Lucille. Lucille was thirty-eight, fatter than Queenie, and made happy by Grace. Lucille's boy, Tommy Lee Burgess, was now fourteen. Shy, good-natured, and bumbling, he was an odd member of the family; not paid much attention to when he was about, and altogether forgotten when he was not. Tommy Lee loved to fish, hunt, drive cars, and be by himself. Grace once asked him if he maybe wanted to be sent to military school, where he'd be around some men for a change, but Tommy Lee shook his head in horror, and said he didn't want to go anywhere or do anything else than what he was doing.

Grace and Lucille had built Luvadia the biggest kitchen anybody in those parts had ever seen, and Zaddie and Melva came out to help with the food for the shower. The ladies of Perdido showed up half an hour early in hopes that they would be shown around the place. Lucille was proud of her house, and happy to comply. The ladies were impressed, and playfully chastised Grace and Lucille for keeping this wonderful place such a secret.

In the midst of the festivities Grace said to Miriam, "This place started out a secret, what with Lucille coming out here when she was pregnant. And then when we found oil, we wanted to keep that secret for a while. So Lucille and I just got in the habit of living here all by ourselves, and never having anybody but family. Maybe we ought to start entertaining a little more."

"Wouldn't catch me doing for this pack," said Miriam in a low voice, gazing around at the crowd of women bent over the food on the dining room table.