The Wedding Machine (38 page)

Well, God
, she says.
Maybe it's for the best. Maybe I don't need to
know about my roots. I've had a blessed life here in Jasper with a loving
husband and a place to finally call home, and I might as well let it
go at that.

As Ray watched the smoke of the singeing family trees waft up and into the Spanish moss of the live oaks, she let go of the pain in her heart—the pain she'd carried ever since the night some forty years ago when Nigel Pringle called her a bastard. Then she breathed in the sweet smell of the smoke spreading out in the thick air around her and pictured herself climbing into the back of the pickup truck the night the pack came calling and how when they took off, she looked back to find her mama standing on the front stoop smiling and waving.

When she turned back around in the graveyard on the healing prayer revival day, most of the participants had filed out of the churchyard, and Vangie was picking up the leftover programs that a few folks had left on the headstones.

Ray came alongside her and picked some up too. Then she patted Vangie's back. “It went real well.”

That night when Ray went home, Cousin Willy met her on the back steps with a white wine spritzer and some summer sausage and Triscuits. “How did it go?” he said.

She sat right down on the rocking chair beside him, and they looked out over the garden and she said, “Willy, did you know I never had a father?”

He reached out, put his arm firmly around her shoulders, and took a deep breath. “I figured, sweet.”

“You did?” Snippets of their life together flash through her mind. “All this time?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Neither you or your mama had much to say about family, and I just assumed—”

“You mean you figured that all along, and it never
bothered
you?”

He turned to face her. “Bothered me? Heck, Ray, the best thing that ever happened to me was you and your move to Jasper. I couldn't have cared less about your family history.”

She smiled and rested her head in the nook of his neck.

“There's more,” she said. “I wasn't a relative of Mrs. Pringle's on South Battery, Willy. My mama was her housekeeper. We took care of her when she was elderly. That's why she left us some of the inheritance.”

Cousin Willy pulled her closer. “It doesn't matter, Ray. That has never mattered to me. The only one it's mattered to is you.”

Ray opened her eyes wide and sat up. “Do you think the gals know?”

Willy shrugged and pulled her back close to him. “I don't know, and I don't care.”

She settled into his thick chest and breathed in his warmth. She guessed she might have sensed all along that the gals had a hunch about her past. Hilda had always probed her about it, but she thought that was just to get a rise out of her.

“I love you, Ray,” Cousin Willy said. “I love you, your gals love you, and the whole town of Jasper would be a wreck without you.”

She leaned forward, slapped her knees. “Well, Willy, I think you're right.”

“Good,” he said.

“And I think we ought to have Sis's wedding right here in our back garden. I'm going to make it glorious. Better than anything the town has ever seen. What do you say? Can I offer it?”

Willy took a sip of her wine spritzer. He winced and said, “I think it's a fine idea. Now you call your gals, and I'm going to get a beer and put a venison loin on the grill.”

“You'll help me, won't you?” Ray said to the back of his balding head. “We're going to have to clean the garden up real good, and we might need to repaint the trim of the house.”

“'Course.” He turned back to grin at her. “'Course, I'll help you, First Lady.”

The next day Ray grabbed Sis's old wedding dress—the one she'd bought back from Goodwill the day Sis donated it—and drove over to the fabric store in Savannah where she purchased the most beautiful ivory shade of raw silk you ever saw. Then she went over to Hilda's and rang the doorbell. She had written a letter to Hilda the night before, and she pulled it out of her pocketbook and slipped it through the mail slot.

“Hilda,” she called. “I've got a letter for you that will be worth your trip down the stairs. It's about my life before Jasper, which I think you knew all along. But once you get down here to read this, I've got something else for you. It's Sis's old wedding dress and some gorgeous silk from the fabric store. I was hoping you could take the measurements from the old dress to make her a new gown. She'll be marrying that Italian trumpeter next month, you know?”

Ray rested the fabric and the dress on the bench by the front door. She peered through the dining room window, but she couldn't see any sign of Hilda. She cupped her hands and hollered toward the upstairs, where she noticed one window was open just a couple of inches.

“I'm going to keep back checking with you all week, Hilda. If you feel up to making the dress, write me a note. Otherwise, we'll go to town and buy something.”

Now on the night before Sis's wedding, Ray really is pulling out all of the stops. It's going to be the most beautiful celebration the town has ever seen. Her gardenias have just started to bloom, and she is using every last one of them for the boutonnieres and the wedding cake and one of the focal points of Sis's spring bouquet. You will never smell a sweeter fragrance in your life!

“Don't you want to save those for Pris's party?” Kitty B. had asked a few days ago when she and Ray went to Charleston to buy the oasis and floral tape.

“No,” Ray says. “I don't. I want to use every last one of them for Sis.”

Ray even took down her stash of champagne glasses from the shed last week, and she and Richadene washed each of the two hundred glasses by hand for the occasion. When she didn't hear back from Hilda, she took Sis to Charleston where they searched and searched for the right gown. They settled on a two-piece ensemble they found at Saks—a straight satin skirt with a beaded jacket. Ray thought it looked a little like something a mother of the bride would wear, but Sis twirled around in it in front of the dressing room mirror and said, “This will work fine. Tasteful and age-appropriate. With three weeks to go, I can't be too picky, right?”

Tonight Ray's putting everyone to work for the final touches. She and Kitty B. are cutting the flowers and preparing the oasis for the arrangements while Justin and Willy set out the mosquito zappers beneath the tent in the backyard. Sis even dropped by, and now she's polishing the last few silver trays for the champagne toast.

“Go on home and get some rest.” Ray pats Sis's back, looks at her watch, and adds, “It's almost eleven o'clock.”

“I'm an old woman, Ray,” Sis says. “The last-minute, behind-the-scenes stuff is my favorite part, and I'm not going to miss it.”

“I'm spending the night,” Kitty B. says. “You can, too, if you want.”

Ray laughs. “Of course you can.”

“I think I will,” she says. “It's thirty-four years later, but I want my prewedding slumber party too.”

At midnight, Ray puts the last bits of greenery in some water and says, “Y'all go get ready for bed, and I'll make us a midnight snack.”

A few minutes later they are out on the piazza with three shrimp salad sandwiches, a tray of lemon squares, and a bottle of chardonnay, watching the reflection of the moon on the ripples of water moving into Round-O Creek. The heat from the late April day has long since faded, and the air is soft and cool.

“How's LeMar?” Sis asks Kitty B. as she props her feet up on the coffee table.

“Angus took him to the Medical University today,” Kitty B. says. “He wanted to hear for himself what the specialist had to stay about the test results, and he'll give me a full report tomorrow.”

Kitty B. leans back in the wicker chair, closes her eyes, and breathes in the fresh air. Then she tilts her head to Sis and says, “But to answer your question, he's hopeful, and that's been a wonderful surprise. Just the other day on our way home from the hospital he said, ‘I'm not worried, Kitty B. I think we'll be able to get this under control.'”

Ray hopes LeMar is right and that it will be a long time before they will be coordinating anyone's funeral reception. LeMar has felt ill for over twenty years now, but this cancer has come on so fast it's hard for the gang to take it in. Despite the hot flashes and the bald spots, it's easy to forget that they are all aging. That time will catch up with them sooner or later and that those headstones in the All Saints parish graveyard will have some of their names etched on them in a few short decades.

“Maybe LeMar should come for prayer,” Ray says before she even has time to stop herself.

Kitty B. and Sis turn sharply toward her, their eyes widening in disbelief. Ray calmly pats her lips with a napkin and says, “You know, at the church. Capers and Vangie can pray for him.”

“You really think he should?” Kitty B. says. “You think that might work?”

“Yes.” Ray brushes a crumb off her nightgown and nods her head. “I do.”

“Well, then, I'll talk to him about that,” Kitty B. says. “I think he just might go, Ray. Thank you for the suggestion.”

Sis turns to Kitty B. and winks. Then she reaches out and squeezes Ray's wrist. “It's a wonderful suggestion.”

Ray nods her head and looks out over the water. Then she props her legs on the table by Sis.

“I'm just so excited about tomorrow.” Kitty B. nudges Sis's elbow. “Aren't you?”

“I am.” Sis grins and even in the darkness Ray imagines her cheeks reddening. “I really can't believe it's happening.”

“We're just so happy for you,” Kitty B. says.

“We are.” Ray sits up and looks at the tent and then back to the gals. Her stomach starts to churn the way it usually does before she hosts a big event. “I just hope we haven't forgotten anything, y'all. Is there anything else you can think of?”

“Yes,” a quiet voice calls from the dark edge of the garden. “There is one more thing.”

Ray leans forward and squints, and she can see a long piece of whiteness moving toward them.

“What's
that
?” Sis says, sitting up in her seat.

“Who's there?” Kitty B. says as she stands.

“She can't get married without this,” the figure says as it moves toward the porch, carefully holding the whiteness above the ground.

“Hilda?” Kitty B. takes a step toward the garden and then looks back at Sis and Ray. “Y'all, I think that's her.”

“Hush, Kitty B.,” the voice says. “Don't make a scene. I'm just coming to drop this wedding gown off.”

“It
is
her!” Sis says. She leaps up from her chair and runs out to greet her, and the others follow.

Ray grabs the gown out of her hands and drapes it over the piazza railing and waits her turn to embrace her. In the moonlight Hilda looks better than Ray would ever expect. She's thin but not more so than usual, and she holds her back up straight as a rod with her perfect posture as she blots her painted lips.