No Dark Valley (21 page)

She picked up the newspaper she had thrown onto the sofa earlier and opened it. Here, these were real stories about real people. She scanned an article on the front page about vandalism at the Field Pea Restaurant over in Filbert, then another one about the low math scores on achievement tests in South Carolina. And here was one about road repairs out on Highway 11. She gave a little laugh. This stuff was about as interesting as what came out of Patsy Stewart's mouth.

As she flipped open the paper to find the editorial page, a circular slipped out and fell into her lap.
COME TO THRIFTY-MART! WE'VE GOT HEARTS!
it announced boldly. Pink and red hearts were splashed all over the front, along with pictures of frosted heart-shaped cakes, heart-shaped boxes of candy, teddy bears, red roses, and such.

Of course. She had almost forgotten that tomorrow was Valentine's Day. It wasn't a day you cared much about when you didn't have anybody to celebrate it with. Now that she thought about it, this was probably the first Valentine's Day in years and years that she would spend alone. Maybe the first one ever. Last year she had gone out to dinner at a nice restaurant in Greenville. Her date owned the floral shop where Connie, Ollie's wife, worked, and Connie had set it all up. She had just
known
Celia would fall madly in love with this guy, and she had talked him up so much to Celia for days before that no one could have possibly measured up.

And speaking of measuring up, it evidently hadn't occurred to Connie to mention not only that the man was about the same height as Celia, who had always been the shortest girl in her class, but also that he was five years younger. He had brought her flowers, which didn't much impress Celia, because she knew he had no doubt taken them from his shop at no cost. They were probably all the leftovers lying around after his helpers had assembled the bouquets that other taller men had bought for their real sweethearts.

He
was
funny, though, Celia had to admit that. She liked his sense of humor a lot, but that wasn't enough to make up for all the other things. At some point during the evening, she had found out he had a cat, and that, along with the fact that when he got his credit card receipt from the waiter he wrote in a chintzy tip, barely even ten percent, so the bill would come out to an even fifty dollars, was enough to make her turn him down when he asked her out again.

Edward, his name had been. Not Ed or Eddie, he had been swift to point out, but Edward. Al had come along shortly after Edward, and though he had lasted longer than Edward, she had ended up dumping him like all the others. It was becoming increasingly clear to Celia that for every single man close to her age, there was also a very good reason for his still being unclaimed.

The timer went off in the kitchen just after Mrs. Bennet arrived at Netherfield with her younger daughters in tow to see how Jane was doing and to pronounce her still too ill to be moved. The camera focused on Mr. Darcy's face as Mrs. Bennet made a pointed comment about “gentlemanly behavior,” an area in which she obviously felt Darcy to be lacking.

Darcy's intelligent eyes and dark hair suddenly made Celia think of Bruce, whatever his last name was. Husband of Kimberly and father of Madison, she reminded herself. She wondered briefly what he would give Kimberly for Valentine's Day. She imagined him going to a jewelry store to buy a new gold chain to replace the one Madison had broken. She glanced back at the television and saw that the camera had shifted to Darcy taking a bath. The servant was pouring a large pitcher of water over him. Even soaking wet, Darcy had to be one of the handsomest men Celia had ever seen.

She wondered if one side of Bruce's entire body had been burned, or just his neck and hands. She imagined gently rubbing salve onto his scars.

O happy day, Celia thought as she slowly rose from the sofa to go to the kitchen. I've sunk to fantasizing about fictional characters and married men. And as she prepared to eat her supper, the same bleak thought settled upon her that kept coming to mind more and more these days. She envisioned herself growing old, and doing so alone, without husband or children to love her.

11

A Green Hill Far Away

March was finally almost over. On the last Monday of the month, Celia won her fifth straight tennis match for her new team, and as she came off the court, Bonnie Maggio, her team captain, met her at the gate, slung an arm around her, and proceeded to tell her how well she had played.

It had been a hard match, a three-setter that went to a tiebreak in the third. There had been talk beforehand that her opponent, a muscular thirty-year-old named Donna Cobb, used to play at the 4.5 level but had been out for a couple of years and decided to rate herself down for this season “until she got her game back.” In Celia's opinion, the woman's game was back, if she had ever lost it in the first place.

Other teams in the area were complaining loudly about Donna Cobb, saying it wasn't fair that she was playing on a 4.0 team. One team captain had written a letter of protest to the state league coordinator. Bonnie Maggio hadn't said much. She had advised the whole team to keep quiet because they all knew by now that Celia was also probably closer to a 4.5 than a 4.0. If Donna Cobb's team went on to the state championship in May, she had a good chance of being disqualified when the ever-watchful state verifiers came around during one of her matches and saw how good she was. Of course, this was exactly what Bonnie Maggio was worried about concerning Celia, also.

“We pamper our singles players,” Bonnie told her now, guiding her toward a chair over in the shade, where several other team members were seated. “Here she is. She did it again,” Bonnie called to the other women. “Hail the conquering hero and all that. Here, y'all take care of our little girl while I go get her something to drink.” Bonnie liked to tease Celia about being the youngest player on the team. Except for Anastasia Elsey, who had recently turned thirty-eight, the other team members were all in their forties and fifties.

As Celia's team members congratulated her, Celia noticed that Donna Cobb was standing over by the food, which was spread out on a large wrought-iron table, above which a large multistriped umbrella was mounted. She was talking to a cluster of her own teammates, shaking her head and gesturing angrily. Celia had played a lot of bad losers in her life, but this woman topped them all, questioning line calls, refusing to call out the score when she fell behind, cursing audibly whenever Celia put one away at the net. When it was time to shake hands at the end of the match, she had barely touched Celia's hand before pulling away quickly, as if afraid of contracting hoof-and-mouth disease. She had zipped her racket into its case furiously, then jammed it into her tennis bag and stomped off the court without speaking.

“That is one ticked-off gal,” Tammy Elias said. “Losing is probably something she never does.”

Celia could see why. She still didn't know how she had managed to pull it off. Donna Cobb could make two of Celia. She walked like a man, and her biceps were huge. Her serve and overhead volleys could take your breath away.

“So glad we could give her this new experience,” said Elizabeth Landis. She was sitting in the chair next to Celia. Bonnie Maggio had treated Elizabeth like a queen all season, too, thanking her over and over for “finding Celia for us.” The team had all had a good laugh over Elizabeth's story about just happening to mention their need of another singles player to Celia one day at the Trio Gallery.

They still had one match in progress on the second court—the number two doubles—so they all turned their attention back to that. Jane Kimbrell and Gloria McGregor were a strong partnership, but lately they'd been having trouble with consistency and had lost their last two matches. They were now in the third set at five games apiece, having split the first two sets 7–6, 6–7. The team needed this last match for the win.

Bonnie returned with a cup of ice and a can of Coke for Celia and flopped down on the grass beside her to watch Jane and Gloria. Celia was so tired she wasn't sure she could even pop the tab on her Coke. She sat there looking down at it for a minute, wishing she didn't have to go to work this afternoon. She'd love to just go home, shower, and go straight to bed. When she had agreed to play tennis this season, she had never dreamed she would have matches like the one today—not exactly what you would call “recreational tennis.”

She lifted her eyes and looked off toward Paris Mountain. This was a beautiful country club nestled among wooded hills and small lakes. Most of the women on the other team lived in the nearby subdivision, an exclusive private community called Gateway Greens on the outskirts of Greenville. They all belonged to the country club and took weekly lessons from a pro, whereas Celia's team, the Holiday Winners, played on borrowed courts at a motel and set up a rickety folding table for the food when they hosted a home match.

Celia's teammates, a mixed lot including everything from an interior decorator to a day-care worker, lived in houses scattered all over Derby, Filbert, and Berea. One of them, a part-time grocery store clerk named Cindy Petrarch, even lived in a trailer. But every time they had had a match so far this season, Celia had come away with the conviction that the women on the Holiday Winners got along better and had more fun than those on the other teams. She liked being part of a ragtag group that nobody took very seriously until after they finished playing them.

Elizabeth Landis must have noticed that Celia's attention wasn't on the doubles match because she leaned over to her and said quietly, “This is a pretty place, isn't it? Everything's so green—the name sure fits.” Celia nodded and looked back to the court. The four players were changing sides, which must mean it was now 6–5. She wondered who had won that last game.

“Come on, girls,” Bonnie called to them. “You can do it.”

“Okay now, if Gloria can just hold her serve,” Judy Howell said. Only a week earlier, it had been Gloria who had double-faulted and then blown an easy overhead to lose the last two points of the match.

The first point was short as Jane poached at the net and hit a sharply angled shot that was impossible to return.

“Hang in there, girls,” Bonnie said under her breath.

But they lost the next point when they both rushed the net and one of the opponents landed a lob behind them.

Ellen Myers covered her eyes with one hand. “I can't watch this,” she said. It was a long point that finally ended when one of the opponents netted an easy return.

“That's like me,” Betsy Harris said. “Luck up on the hard ones and miss the easy ones.”

“Yeah, you ought to be more consistent like me,” Judy said. “I miss both kinds.”

Gloria won the next point when she passed the net opponent with a line drive down the alley, so now it was 40–15.

“This would sure be a nice time for an ace,” Bonnie said. And no sooner had she gotten the words out of her mouth than that's exactly what happened. The serve went in low and hard right down the middle, and the woman receiving it, obviously expecting one of Gloria's signature spinouts near the sideline, couldn't adjust fast enough. She swung late and awkwardly, totally missing the ball.

Bonnie and several of the others were on their feet at once, calling out congratulations and heading for the gate to welcome Jane and Gloria off the court. Betsy Harris announced her intention of checking out the food and walked off in that direction. “Come on, y'all go with me,” she called back to Celia and Elizabeth. But Celia couldn't force herself to get up.

“We'll be there in a minute,” Elizabeth said, laughing and waving her on. “Save us some.”

Celia had been a little wary of Elizabeth Landis ever since Macon Mahoney had talked about going to her church. She sure wasn't interested in being close friends with anybody who went around inviting people to church. She took another sip of her Coke and hoped Elizabeth would get up and leave.

But she didn't. Instead, she took in a deep breath and said, “I love being out here away from town. No factories, no McDonald's, no traffic.” She pointed off to the left. “I keep looking out there between those two green hills expecting a shepherd to come out holding a little white lamb. Or maybe a few horses galloping out or a little girl herding geese or something picturesque like that.” She held up a hand and smiled. “I know, I know. You don't have to tell me I'm strange. My sister told me that last night on the phone. Came right out and called me strange.” She laughed. “Of course, maybe it had something to do with the fact that I was quoting poetry to her, which she despises.”

The reference to poetry surprised Celia. She wondered what Elizabeth would say if she knew that her pointing out the green hills of the golf course had caused a line of poetry to spring to her own mind: “There is a green hill far away, outside a city wall.” She guessed you could call it poetry. It wasn't a hymn they had sung very often at Bethany Hills Bible Tabernacle, and she couldn't believe she even remembered it and that it had popped into her head out of nowhere. She wondered if they still sang a song like that at churches today, if maybe Elizabeth would know it and be able to hum a few bars.

“Come to think of it, I think the actual word she used was
weird
, not
strange
,” Elizabeth said, still smiling. “I get absolutely no respect from my little sister.”

Celia was also surprised that Elizabeth Landis was talking so much. She had always gotten the idea that she was reserved, for she often sat apart from the others, not in an unfriendly sort of way but just keeping to herself, watching. You could tell a lot was going on in her mind, but she didn't let much of it out. At least not usually. But for some reason Elizabeth seemed to have suddenly turned talkative today. Maybe the others were rubbing off on her.