Elaine Hussey - The Oleander Sisters

Panicked, Sweet Mama eased her Buick into a side road that looked like it didn’t lead anywhere, let alone her house where Beulah would be waiting with a glass of sweet tea. She stumbled out of her car and held on to her hat, searching her surroundings.

It seemed to her the sun was sinking in the east.

Then it occurred to her that she’d been driving along in exactly the opposite and wrong direction.

Frantically, she grabbed her purse out of the car and dug out the Remembering Book. But it was already too dark to read driving directions from the café to her house, and there was nothing written about a bridge to the unknown.

She was lost. And no matter how hard she searched the little notebook in her hand, it wouldn’t tell her how to find the way home.

Seven

DRIVING TO THE BRIDAL SHOP Sis felt as if she were in two places at once, behind the wheel of the car where she was borne along in a rushing torrent of Emily’s chatter and on the beach with the crowd of little boys playing a game of baseball.

“There’s no use counting on flowers from that new rose hedge,” Emily said.

Sis refused to think about the rose hedge till after the wedding. Even when she was in the garden, she skirted around the roses.

“Nothing’s surviving the heat except the oleander and the day lilies,” Emily added. “White oleander will be fine, but maybe I can use some baskets of pink roses to camouflage all that orange.”

His baseball cap was orange, that little boy on the beach who lobbed the ball toward center field and then spewed up a fine storm of sand as he slid into first base. He looked about ten, the age Sis’s son might be...if she had one. If she had a house and a husband and a dog in the backyard. She’d have a large breed, a golden retriever, maybe, or even a Border collie. Her son would call him Boy and play fetch with him in the backyard using a small baseball mitt to match the one she’d used when she was a child.

Her fantasy became part of Emily’s enthusiastic monologue.

“I thought for the music, we’d just move Sweet Mama’s turntable to the back porch and put on a record.”

The little boy in the orange cap was stealing into home. If she’d had a son, he would have done exactly that. He might even have grown up to be a professional baseball player.

“Sis, are you listening to me?”

“I’m listening.”

“I was going to use Judy Garland singing ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow,’ but Larry doesn’t like that song.”

Just the mention of that fool’s name had Sis tightening her grip on the wheel.

“Emily, if you want to use that song, use it.”

“After what happened to her, I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.”

“Good grief!”

Judy Garland had died last month of a drug overdose. The famous singer’s death had made no impact at all on Sis. Music was just something to fill the days that seemed to go on forever. When had she realized she’d never marry, never have children of her own? When had the door slammed shut to a future that included a man with dark eyes and gentle hands who would hold her close and whisper her real name?

She could almost hear his voice. Beth, Beth, Beth.

“Sis!” Emily grabbed ahold of the dashboard. “Slow down.”

“Why? I’m not five miles over the speed limit.”

“You’re going to whiz right past the bridal shop.”

If Sis had her way, she’d fly past. She’d sprout wings so strong they would carry her and her sister far above the shop with pink-striped awnings where fairy tales were wrapped in pearls and lace and sold to gullible women who expected life to be one big happily ever after.

Wondering if she was being cantankerous or practical or just plain jealous, she parked under the spreading branches of an ancient magnolia tree so huge it shaded three spaces. The only good thing she could say about this shopping trip was that she didn’t have to lock the car. Thank God Biloxi was still that kind of town.

Sis followed her sister into a shop that smelled like ripe pears. Little sachets of the potpourri were piled high in crystal bowls along the glass countertop.

A set of full-length mirrors along the east wall showed her sister, multiplied, surrounded by wedding dresses in an endless sea of white.

When the heart breaks it makes a sound so small there is nothing to show for it except a hand clutched over the chest and a sudden smothering sensation. Was it breaking for Emily or herself, a homely woman who would never catch a husband, let alone have a little boy stealing into home plate?

Feeling guilty and remorseful for her unbecoming jealousy of a sister she loved more than all the would-be suitors in Biloxi, Sis followed Emily into an area of curtained dressing rooms where her sister insisted she try on a bridesmaid’s dress. Pink, for God’s sake. Even worse, it had ruffles.

The mirror confirmed that Sis looked as bad as she’d imagined.

“I look like a linebacker dipped in Pepto-Bismol.”

“Hush up. It brings out some color in your face.” Emily walked around her, admiring the awful dress from every angle. “With some pearls and a touch of lipstick, you’ll be sensational.”

Sis had never been sensational in her life. She didn’t know how she was going to start now, with or without lipstick. She didn’t ask what color. She didn’t even want to know.

“Fine.” She couldn’t get out of the dress fast enough. What did it matter how she looked as long as her sister was finally going to get the wedding of her dreams? “You’re the one who ought to be trying on dresses.”

Emily rifled through the rack and held up a floor-length satin dress.

“I like this one. It’s the perfect dress for the perfect wedding.”

Sis wished she could believe that. But since she’d gotten a glimpse of Larry’s true nature, she felt like they were all in the middle of one of the hurricanes that sometimes swept through the Gulf Coast, blowing away everything in its path.

“The dress is lovely, Em. I’ll help get you zipped in.”

“No, no. I can do it by myself.”

Emily clutched the dress to her chest, and for an instant, she wouldn’t even look at Sis. Emily had ocean eyes, a blue so deep it could hold the endless moods of the sea, every one of them reflected in a glance. What was she trying to hide?

“I’m fine, Sis. You wait out here.”

She sank into an overstuffed chair covered in hideous-looking pink chintz wondering what that skunk had said or done to her sister now. Since that awful dinner, Emily hadn’t brought him back to Sweet Mama’s, and he certainly hadn’t shown his slick face in the café. Even worse, Emily, who told her everything, had told her nothing of any importance since that night.

By the time her sister reappeared, Sis was biting her nails down to the quick.

“What do you think, Sis?”

“It’s beautiful.”

“I think it has too many sequins on the bodice.” Emily twisted this way and that in front of the mirror, viewing the dress from all angles.

“Okay. I’ll help you get out of it and you can try on another one.”

“No. You wait here. I want to surprise you.”

Emily selected three more dresses off the racks and disappeared once more into the dressing room while Sis sat there wondering what was taking so long and what in the world was wrong with sequins.

“What about this one?” Emily was in a getup with long, satin sleeves and a tight bodice.

“Can you breathe in that thing?”

“You think it’s too tight?”

“No, I just think you ought to be comfortable at your own wedding.” Emily’s face fell. Had Sis hit a nerve? “But what do I know?”

“I have two more I want to try.”

If the dresses had those silly little buttons in the back like the one she was wearing they’d be there till Judgment Day. And maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea, considering who would be waiting for her sister at the altar.