Waiting for Sunrise (20 page)

“Oh.”

“I’ve even heard that a lot of artists—painters, writers, and that kind of thing—like to go there, just to soak up the muse.”

Ronni glared at him before bursting into a song of laughter. “Soak up the muse?” She pressed her slender hand, the one not holding the fan, against her chest and forced herself to breathe normally. “Oh, Billy. You
have
been at the library reading up, haven’t you?”

Billy felt himself grow warm under her amusement. “Yeah. But that’s because I have a plan, Ronni.”

“What plan?”

Billy reached for the hand waving the fan and said, “Turn and look at me.”

Her face grew somber. “But then I can’t fan us.”

“I don’t care about the heat anymore, Ronni. I’m pretty much drenched out here.” So then how was it, he wondered, she still managed to look so fresh. He looked at her hand resting in his and listened as she blew the pesky insects away from her face. “All right, then. You can still fan us when we sit like this, no?”

“Yes, I can.” She resumed waving the funeral home fan; Jesus kneeling in the Garden of Gethsemane coming toward him, away from him, toward him, away from him. He smiled to himself. He was about to propose a life together on Cedar Key Island to this beautiful young woman he’d loved since he was a boy, and Jesus was going to be a part of it.

“What are you smiling at, Billy Liddle?”

“I’m just thinking . . . you were the one who led me to church. You were the one who showed me I can have a relationship with God. And that God was greater than any problem I had at home . . .”

Ronni pinked in the glow of the porch light. “I know . . .”

“And now I’m going to talk to you about our future, and here you are waving his picture at me.”

Ronni’s eyes left Billy’s face long enough to glance at the fan before sweeping over to him again. “Our future?”

“Yeah.” Billy reached up, traced the side of her delicate face with his fingertips. It was the most intimate he’d ever dared allow himself to be with her. “I want to marry you, Ronni. Surely you know that.”

She looked at her lap, grabbed his fingers with her free hand, and brought them down to where their knees nearly touched. “I want to marry you too, Billy. But we’ve got to have more than that. We’ve got to have more than a plan. It’s got to be doable. We have to see the evidence of it being successful . . .” She frowned. “Because I don’t believe in ‘poor and in love.’”

A bubble of laughter escaped Billy’s chest. She wanted to marry him. “I don’t either, Ronni. And that’s why I’m going to talk to your father about opening another Sikes’s in Cedar Key. The timing is perfect. We’ll be in on the ground floor of what I believe will be something great. I’ve prayed about it, Ronni, and God hasn’t given me a check in my heart that says, ‘Don’t do it, Billy.’ All I’m getting is that this is the path I’m supposed to be on.
We’re
supposed to be on.” Just in case anyone was hanging out near the opened living room window, he leaned over enough so that he could speak quietly and she could still hear. “This isn’t a romantic setting, I know. We’re both sticky hot and fighting these nasty bugs. But here it is, Veronica Sikes. If you can love me out here in this heat, you can love me anywhere. If you can trust me enough to rattle on about the history of a place you clearly know nothing about . . .”

Her eyelashes batted. “I do trust you. And I love you, William Liddle. I’d
love
you in the middle of a garbage dump.”

“And in Cedar Key?”

“Mmmhmm.”

“Then, you’ll marry me?”

She nodded but said nothing until, “Tomorrow, talk to Daddy. Ask him about the restaurant. Tell him what you’ve got in mind. If it’s okay with Daddy, it’s surely fine by me.”

23

John Sikes listened to every word Billy spoke from the opposite side of the gun-metal gray desk in Sikes’s Seafood office. His expression never fluctuated. His body didn’t move. As Billy began, Mr. Sikes had leaned back in the large black chair, supported by the paneled wall behind him, rested his elbows on the arms, and brought his hands—clasped together—to his face. The index fingers rose like the steeple of a church and pressed against his lips, which were pursed.

Other than when he had given Billy the rules for dating his daughter, Billy had never seen him quite so serious.

When Billy finished saying everything he could think to say, Mr. Sikes leaned forward. The springs in the chair creaked. Even the floor seemed to moan and the walls sigh in expectation of what Ronni’s father might say next. Billy just held his breath—literally—as Mr. Sikes’s arms fell against the top of the desk. His head dropped between his shoulders, his eyes cast downward, and for a moment Billy worried he’d killed the man. But when he looked up again, he smiled for a millisecond, sighed out of his nostrils, and said, “Breathe, son.”

Billy’s whole body relaxed as he blew air from between his lips.

Their eyes met. Held. They spoke without words.

You want to marry my daughter.

I do.

You want me to invest in a restaurant.

I do.

And you want to marry my daughter.

Billy watched John Sikes’s Adam’s apple bob in this throat before he spoke. “I’ll need time to pray about this, you understand.”

Billy pressed his damp palms onto his thighs and wiped downward. “Yes, sir.”

“Because this is a tall order.”

“I know, sir.”

“You aren’t just asking me to make a large monetary investment. You’re asking me to give you one of my most prized possessions.”

“Yes, sir.” His voice rose on the last word, dangling there.

John Sikes raises an eyebrow at him. “But?”

Billy allowed a nervous cough to escape. “I don’t . . . I don’t know how to say what I want to say.”

The eyebrow rose again. “You don’t know how to say it? Or, you don’t know how to say it to me?”

Billy wiped his palms against the material of his pants again. “Yes, sir. The latter, sir.”

John Sikes leaned back in his chair again, assuming the old position. “Billy, if you are going to manage a restaurant for me—and if you are going to be my son-in-law—then I suggest you get used to saying to me what’s on your mind.”

Billy swiped his parched lips with his equally dry tongue. He attempted to swallow but his throat didn’t quite follow through. He took a deep breath. “I love her too, sir. More than my own life.”

John Sikes closed his eyes. “I know you do. And you have, I can tell, managed to love her within my rules.”

Billy raised his right hand. “On my honor, sir.”

To which John Sikes laughed so hard, Billy thought the chair would tip out from under him.

Billy tried to meet the laughter with a smile. “Glad to know I can make you laugh, Mr. Sikes.”

The older man stood, extended a hand. Billy did the same. The men shook.

“I’ll let you know when I’m ready to talk about this further.”

Billy shook Sikes’s hand once more and said, “I look forward to it, sir.”

———

A week passed before Ronni called Billy early one morning to tell him her father wanted to speak to the both of them. That night. And that he wanted Billy’s mother there too.

“How did he sound?” Billy asked her.

Ronni paused before answering, “Like my father, I guess.”

“What does that mean?” his voice squeaked around the words.

Ronni giggled. “It means he just sounds like Daddy. I can honestly say I’m not getting a read on him.”

“Did you talk to your mom? What did she say?”

“She said that she doesn’t know what he’s going to say either. That we’ll just have to wait.”

Billy gripped the phone tighter in a palm that was growing damp. “But, Ronni . . . wouldn’t he have talked to her about this?”

“Sure he did, Billy. But the final decision rests with him. Just like, one day—if God so allows—you’ll make this decision for our girls.”

Billy thought his knees would give out at the thought. “Ronni,” he whispered. “I can’t even think that far.”

He heard her sigh, sweet and long. “I can.”

He closed his eyes against the words. “I’ll go talk to Mama before she leaves for work. What time tonight?”

“Can you be here at six? Mama said we’d have dinner first.”

“Sure. Six. That’s perfect.” Billy said good-bye, told her that he loved her “more than life.”

“I love you too.” Then she giggled. “By this time tomorrow, Billy Liddle, we’ll either be engaged or two star-crossed lovers who weren’t meant to be.”

At first Billy couldn’t answer. Then he said, “Let’s hope it’s the first.”

He disconnected the call and went in search of his mother, whom he found applying red lipstick to her thin, pale lips from over the bathroom sink. “Mama?”

She looked at him and smiled. “There you are. Who was that on the phone?”

“Ronni. Her parents want us to come to dinner tonight. Mr. Sikes has made a decision.”

His mother smiled at him, just as he knew she would. She opened the chrome and mirrored medicine cabinet, placed her tube of lipstick on the bottom shelf, and then closed it with the slightest
click.
“I have something I want to show you,” she said. She started toward him. He stepped into the tiny square hallway between their two small bedrooms and waited for her to walk past him.

He followed her into her room, where she opened the three-paneled closet door and reached for the top shelf, which she couldn’t quite get to. “Let me, Mama.”

Mama stood back and pointed. “That hatbox, pushed to the rear.”

The hatbox made Billy think of a box of Good & Plenty. Sprinkled on the bright pink background were pairs of black gloved hands holding delicate black parasols. He grabbed the black velvet-corded handle and pulled it toward him; it was heavier than he’d anticipated. “What have you got in here, Mama? Bars of silver?”

“Just you be careful,” Mama said, already reaching to take it from his hands.

When it was firmly in her hands, she took it to the already made bed and set it down carefully while Billy closed the closet door.

Mama sat, patted the mattress on the other side of the case, and said, “Sit for a minute.”

He did.

He watched as she opened the hatbox, sliding the top off and placing it on the bed beside her. She removed a hat—dark brown felt with a feather and pearls—that he couldn’t remember ever seeing her wear. When she’d set it on the hatbox top, she reached in again to remove—tenderly, reverently—a jewelry box as she said, “Everything in this box is dear to me, Billy. And the pieces inside this jewelry box are even more than that.” She opened the box. “Now, they are only a few.” She pulled a gold chain from the bottom of the case, drew it over the back of her hand. At the end rested a delicate piece. “This is called a lavalier. It belonged to my mother, your grandmother.”

His mother sighed. “She was such an elegant lady. I’m sorry you never got to meet her.” He watched as her lips twisted in a weak smile. “She would have just adored you.” She replaced the necklace. “I always wanted . . .” Mama took a deep breath. “I wanted Patsy to have this one day . . . but . . .”

Patsy. His mother was daring to speak of her. “You know where she is, don’t you, Mama? More than what you told me that night . . . a few years ago . . . that you know people who know . . .”

His mother shrugged. “She could be anywhere.” Then she reached over and patted his hand. “Perhaps . . .” Her voice rose. “Perhaps Veronica can wear it on your wedding day. Something old . . .”

He smiled but felt sad. Conversation about the past was over and it was time to move on to the future. “She’d like that, I know.”

Mama pulled a small velvet box from inside the case. “This . . .” She opened it to display a stunning—even in his way of thinking—sapphire ring. “This was mine.”

“Mama.” Billy could barely think. “I’ve never seen anything like it.” He looked to his mother’s face; her eyes had yet to leave the brilliance of the ring. “Daddy gave this to you?”

“Goodness, no,” she said, looking up. “Your father gave me the gold band I hocked after . . . well, you know.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He looked at the ring again, more mesmerized by its beauty than he had any right to be. “Then . . . who?”

“Patsy’s father gave me this. This is another item I thought would be hers one day but . . . it was too valuable to have put it on the bus with her.”

“The bus . . . Mama? What happened?”

He waited for an answer. Instead, she said, “There are nearly fifty stones in this ring, Billy.” She pointed to both sides with an index finger and a short, rounded nail. “Tell Veronica she will have to be careful with these along the shoulders. She’ll want to have the ring checked once a year by a good jeweler to make sure the stones aren’t loose.”

Billy’s heart hammered. “Ronni? You’re giving
me
this ring?”

Mama slipped the ring halfway down her left third finger and admired it in the overhead light. “The love I had with Patsy’s father . . .” She sighed. “Was the most wonderful kind of love.” She looked at him. “Like yours and Veronica’s. That’s why you must be the one to have it.” She pulled the ring off her finger and set it back into the jewelry box. “This afternoon, go to Maxie’s Department Store. Go to the fine jewelry counter and ask the salesclerk if you can purchase one of their ring boxes. You’ll want that for tonight.”

Billy sat up straight. “But, Mama . . . what if Mr. Sikes says no?”

To which Mama laughed. “Oh, Billy! Clearly, you jest.”

———

Dinner that evening seemed, to Billy, to be nothing more than a meal of endless courses. But Veronica Sikes looked stunning. She wore the frilliest dress he’d seen her wear since their senior school dance—mostly white but with shiny blue satin and what he’d heard his mama call a “sweetheart neckline.” The dress was strapless, which nearly drove him crazy, but she had a matching wrap draped across her shoulders and tucked into a narrow satin belt that fit snug around her tiny waist.

And she wore a single strand of pearls. When he told her how pretty they looked, he avoided adding that her skin practically shimmered beneath them.

She touched them lightly with her fingertips. “They were my grandmother’s.” She gave the slightest wink that only he could see. “Mama thought tonight would be a nice evening to wear them.”

Maybe his mother was right, he figured as he chewed methodically on the roast and potatoes served by Mrs. Sikes. Perhaps Mr. Sikes was going to say yes to his dual proposal.

When dinner was finally over and everyone had eaten the last of the key lime pie and drank the final slurp of coffee, John Sikes leaned back in his armed dining chair and said, “Well, I guess we may as well get to the real reason for this evening.”

Billy glanced across the table to where Ronni sat next to her brothers. Her hands immediately went onto her lap as her shoulders squared.

Mr. Sikes continued, “Stanley and Travis . . . why don’t the two of you start clearing things away in the kitchen for your mama?”

Seventeen-year-old Stanley—whom Billy had palled around with from time to time but not enough to form any real friendship—rolled his eyes. “Gladly.” He jabbed his brother—eleven-year-old Travis—in the ribs before saying, “They’re gonna talk adult and mushy in here, Trav. Let’s get out while we can.”

Mischievous, button-nosed Travis rubbed his side. “I wanna hear what’s gonna happen to Sissy.”

“Travis Trenton Sikes,” Mrs. Sikes said fluidly.

The young lad hung his head. “Yes, ma’am.”

After the two younger Sikes left the dining room for the kitchen, John Sikes cleared his throat and began with, “I guess you know you’re both only eighteen years of age.”

Billy felt his stomach tighten. His mother, God love her, reached across the six inches of space between them and placed her hand near his thigh, just enough to let him know she was there for him. “Yes, sir.”

John leaned forward to rest his forearms on the edge of the long table draped with a lime-green tablecloth. “But . . . I also know the two of you have been friends since you were twelve—best friends, in fact.”

No one responded. No one moved.

“And I also know you professed your love for each other two years ago and, Billy, you have honored my desire that my daughter remain pure and chaste for her wedding day.”

“Yes, sir,” he said, almost too forcefully.

Mr. Sikes visibly swallowed a smile. “You’ve shown maturity beyond your years, Billy, considering the unfortunate decisions of your brother and father . . .”

Billy could only blink at the reference, but he heard his mother’s intake of breath.

“And you’ve proven to be a good citizen of this community in your youth. A good worker in my restaurant.” He looked at the woman sitting to Billy’s right. “And a good son.”

“That he has,” Mama said.

Billy glanced across the table. Ronni was staring at him and her eyes shimmered with tears.