In Front of God and Everybody (23 page)

“What d'ya think, April?” She patted her modified pixie cut.

Every thought I'd had in my brain that day and probably the day before left me stranded, completely blank. While I stared, everybody laughed, including Isabel—and let me tell you, her laugh is pretty scratchy and shrill. That's probably because she laughs about once a year and her laugh box has rusted.

“I believe,” Mama said, “that for once in her life, April Grace Reilly is speechless.”

“It's about time,” Myra Sue said.

“Did you find my evening purse?” Grandma asked, bending closer to the mirror so she could stare into her own eyes.

I held up the bag.

She straightened, saw it, and, grinning like a monkey, took it from my slack fingers.

“What do you girls think of this?” The “girls” all murmured and giggled and exclaimed over the thing.

“It's beautiful, Grace.” That was Isabel.

“Beautiful, Grandmother.” That was Myra Sue.

“Really nice!” Mama added.

“Yes!” Grandma said. “Well, I'd better get to the house and finish getting ready. Think I can take a short little nap without messing up my hair or makeup?”

“I wouldn't. Shall I come with you and help you dress?” Isabel asked.

“Yes! Let's gather up this war paint here and scoot on over to my house. Wait 'til you see my shoes!”

“Me, too, Grandmother?” Myra Sue asked.

“You're helping me right here in this kitchen,” Mama told my sister.

Myra Sue pooched out her lower lip as Grandma and Isabel went out the back door. Seemed to me if Grandma were going back over there, she didn't need to send me to get that purse. But I have never pretended to understand the grown-up mind. I don't think anyone understands it.

After about another minute, I finally collected my wits.

“Grandma was wearing way, way too much makeup,” I said to the world in general.

“Help us with these tomatoes, April Grace,” Mama said. “I'm scalding them right now, so you can dunk them in cold water, and Myra can pull off the skins.”

“And her hair is ridiculous,” I said.

“Don't piddle around,” said Mama. “The peels come off easier if the skins are cold and the tomatoes are warm.”

“And that old man is a sneak,” I added.

Mama was standing by the stove, dunking fat tomatoes in hot water. She gave me a look over her shoulder.

“April Grace, are you jealous of your grandmother and her friend?”

“He's a sneaky old man,” I said. “I caught him snooping around in her house.”

Myra Sue looked up. So did Mama.

“What do you mean?” Mama asked.

“He was looking through her dresser drawers.”

“He what?” Mama asked.

Glad she finally seemed to hear me at last, I said, “He was prowling around in the bedroom, looking through her dresser drawers. When I asked what he was doing, he said he was looking for a hankie. He said women sometimes fold up hankies and fix their corsages on them so their dresses don't get dirty.”

Mama's face cleared.

“Oh, that. You're worried over nothing, April. He called over here, said he wanted to surprise her with a corsage that would go with her dress. He asked what she'd like.”

“So there really is such a thing as pinning a corsage on a hankie?”

“I've never heard of it, but maybe it's what ladies do in Texas.”

I frowned. “Did you tell him to go snooping in her drawers for a hankie?”

“No. But I'm sure if he wanted to have the corsage arranged on one of her pretty lace handkerchiefs, and—”

“Mama!” Myra Sue hollered. “Do you want that water to boil?”

She whirled. “Mercy, no!” She got busy messing with the tomatoes, and when I tried to tell her I didn't trust that old man, she acted like I was a little kid.

“April Grace, your imagination has always functioned in high gear,” she said. “Remember last year when you thought you saw a black bear on Rough Creek Road? You called the sheriff! And it was just Mr. Brett's dog.”

“So? Taz is a big black Chow. I can't help it if he looks like a bear. And he's not supposed to get out of his own yard. Besides—”

“Come over here and dunk these tomatoes in this ice water, April Grace,” Mama said. “And do not say another word about your grandmother, her new look, or her boyfriend.”

I figured if I mentioned the old goof reaching for Grandma's purse that time, or pretending to get a map out of the Corolla's glove compartment, or eyeballing everything on the table while he was supposed to be praying, she'd not listen to that either. Sometimes a good imagination can be a real burden. There are days it does not pay to get out of bed, let alone try to save your own grandmother from disaster.

I decided I'd sneak off over to Grandma's and warn her since Mama wouldn't listen, but you know what? Sometimes it's like mothers can read their children's minds.

She said, “You're not stepping one foot out of this house, April Grace. I won't have you trying to foul up your grandmother's big night just because you don't like sharing her with someone else.”

Boy, oh boy.

I hoped that old man didn't steal her wallet out of the beaded black evening bag right there on the dance floor of the Veranda Club.

I thought about calling the sheriff, but I remembered that time with Taz and Mr. Brett, and how the sheriff and three deputies came out, armed to the teeth, ready to shoot in case of a bear attack. . . . Well, I would've felt terrible if they'd shot Taz, who is a real sweet dog, even if he does look like a big black bear. Anyway, I figured the sheriff wouldn't believe me if I told him old man Rance got into my grandma's drawers.

Now, I admit that I have a vivid imagination. And I also confess that sometimes I exaggerate. But I'm telling you, I just couldn't rest easy in my mind thinking about Mr. Rance and Grandma all night.

Mr. Rance proposed.

Yep, that's right. Mr. Rance proposed to my grandma that night in the Veranda Club.

Of course, none of us knew about it until the next afternoon when we were having our big Sunday dinner after church. Mama had made her famous chicken pie, which when you taste it makes you think you've died and gone to heaven. Everyone was at the table in the dining room, including that old man.

I chowed down on a thick, tender, crusty corner of that chicken pie and was smiling at the wonderfulness of the taste and texture when Mr. Rance quit cramming food into his own personal mouth and stood up.

“Here now!” he yelled. “We got us an announcement. Stand up, Miz Grace, darlin'.”

Her face as red as sunset, Grandma stood. Mr. Rance grabbed her left hand and held it out so we could all see the humongous sparkler on her ring finger. How had we missed it until then?

“Oh!” Isabel shrieked. “Oh, oh,
oh
! Grace!” Trust ole Isabel to show life in the presence of a diamond. She nearly broke her neck jumping up from the chair and rushing to goggle that ring.

My own personal self, I thought the thing was way beyond cheesy and gaudy and could hardly believe my very own grandmother would wear such a thing. Of course, I'd never in a million years believed she would doll herself up like a senior citizen teenager, either, but there she sat, with blue and green eyeshadow and blush and red nail polish and everything.

“I ast Miz Grace to be my bride,” Mr. Rance announced unnecessarily and at the top of his lungs, “and she said yes.”

My stomach clenched.

Daddy and Mama looked a little stunned at first, but soon they smiled and nodded and ogled Grandma's ring. Myra Sue, of course, had leaped up from the table right behind her idol. Ian stayed where he was, but he smiled in a polite kind of way.

You know, after you're around him for a while, ole Ian isn't half bad. Most of the time I think he's too exhausted to be obnoxious.

“When's the lucky day?” Mama said.

“Well, we haven't quite agreed—” Grandma began.

“Two weeks from next Saturday,” said the old man.

“Now, Jeffrey, I don't think—”

“I'll do the thinking for both of us, darlin',” he said, and he gave her a big fat smooch you could have heard on the top floor of the TCBY Tower in Little Rock. Everybody else laughed, but I didn't think it was a bit funny, and looking at Grandma, I wondered if her smile were real.

I pushed away my plate.

“April Grace,” Mama said, “Don't you want to see Grandma's new ring?”

“I think I'm sick,” I said. “May I leave the table?”

“She does look a mite pale, Lily,” Grandma said.

Mama felt my forehead, peered in my eyes, and frowned. “Sick, huh?”

I nodded. “Go to your room, then,” she said. “Crawl into bed, and I'll check on you later.”

I not only crawled into bed—I pulled up the covers and hid my head beneath the pillow. I didn't even have the heart to read.

It must've been midafternoon when I heard my bedroom door open. Figuring it was Myra Sue, I didn't stir and hoped she'd only come in for her hairbrush or something. Whoever it was sat on the edge of the bed, tugged away the covers, and lifted the pillow from my head. I squeezed my eyes shut because I did not want to see anyone from my whole entire family.

“April, honey.” It was Grandma.

“I reckon I don't have anything to say,” I said. But I did. I had tons to say, but no one would listen to me. No one wanted to hear a word of it.

“Aren't you happy for me, April?”

I opened one eye and looked at her. “Are you kidding?”

For a minute, she just sat there and stroked my head with a real, real gentle touch.

“I know you don't like him, honey, but he's a good man.”

I grunted.

“And he'll be a companion for me.”

“You got us,” I said. “Me and Mama and Daddy and even that dumb Myra Sue. Aren't we good enough?”

“Of course you are! But I—”

“Don't you love us anymore?” I heard my voice crack, but I swallowed hard so I wouldn't bust out bawling like a big, fat baby.

“Now, April Grace, you know I do. But at my age, I need someone around—”

“You said yesterday that you wanted to be left alone! You said you wanted to be able to do things on your own. That old man downstairs wouldn't even let you talk a while ago. He had to answer everything himself!”

She stopped smoothing my hair and clasped her hands in her lap. She sat there and looked at me. Then she said, “You realize I'm a living, breathing person, April Grace? I see you making that face. And I know you aren't going to completely understand what I'm about to say, but I'm going to say it anyway. I've been a widow for twenty years. That's a right long time to be the only person in the house late at night, or when the sun's first peeking into the sky in the morning. Or when your feelings are hurt, or something is so funny you laugh 'til you cry. A real person needs to share her life. Even an old person like me. The good Lord said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone.' Well, I reckon He meant it's not good for woman to be alone either, because I'm mighty tired of it.”

“But Grandma. Why Mr. Rance?”

“He's a good man, honey,” she said. “And he's tired of being alone too.”

I sat up. “His wife's only been dead a few months. He ain't been alone very long. And he's always in town at the Koffee Kup, or else he's hanging around here or your house, so he's hardly ever alone at all.” She just sat there, so I went on. “And you know something else? I caught him snooping in your house again yesterday when you weren't home. He said he was looking for hankies for your corsage, but I don't think he was. I think he was looking for something else.”

“Like what?” she asked.

“I don't know,” I said. “Something valuable.”

“I don't have anything valuable.”

“But I bet he don't know that,” I said. “I bet he thinks you do, and he was trying to find it, and now he's going to marry you so's he can get it.”

Then Grandma said, “Did you say he said he was getting me a corsage?”

“Yep. Didn't he?”

She didn't answer that. Instead she asked, real softly, “Don't you think Jeffrey wants me for me?”

I refused to answer that because both of us knew what I thought. We just looked at each other. For a time, she did not move. Then a tiny expression flickered in her eyes, and it grew until she looked really, really sad. I watched as something seemed to go out of her, like air leaking from a balloon.

The two of us had been close my whole entire life. There were a lot of times when I'd rather be with Grandma than anyone else, even Mama or Daddy. Sometimes, when it was just the two of us taking a nature walk, or sharing a glass of sweet tea, or just sitting on her sofa, looking at the old family album while she told me stories about our family, I thought she liked being with me better than anyone too. I thought we were best friends, and now she was going to be best friends with that icky old man. And it wasn't just that I was jealous. I was. But there was something strange about that man, I had no doubts.