Fannie Flagg - Standing in the Rainbow

Miss Anne Hatcher, the drama teacher with the beautiful voice and soft brown eyes… Miss Anne Hatcher, who had broken his heart when at the start of his junior year she became engaged to Hugh Sparrow, the high school civics teacher. Sparrow was an older widower with two children.

Bobby had been a movie usher that year and they had come to the theater a couple of times and he had walked the two of them down the aisle to their seats. He hated the way the paunchy, balding man had walked in front of her and it almost made him sick to his stomach when he saw him put his arm around the back of her seat like he owned her. He hated his guts. It was clear to him that Sparrow had no idea how wonderful she was. How special. He could not possibly love and appreciate her like Bobby did. All Sparrow wanted was a mother for his children.

Bobby fantasized about going over to her house, declaring his love, and asking her to marry him. He fantasized about challenging the civics teacher to a duel and killing him. But he did neither. Instead, the day he was eighteen he joined the army. Anything other than being around for their wedding. He had thought about her all through the war. And now that he was home, what had been a raging, burning love was a dull ache in the pit of his stomach whenever he saw her or heard someone speak her name.

He had come back not feeling much enthusiasm about anything. He was feeling the same way he used to feel when he and Monroe would stumble out of the Elmwood Theater each Saturday, bleary-eyed from sitting through four hours of movies and cartoons. Compared to the Technicolor images they had just seen, the world outside the theater had always looked so gray and dingy. Real life had no beautiful background music, and all the people in town had seemed so dull and bland.

It seemed as if all the magic had gone out of the world and he was bored and restless.

But then one night, Monroe and his wife, Peggy, took Bobby with them to the Polar Bear Tastee-Freez drive-in and Wanda Ricketts, wearing a short skirt with fringe, skated up to the car and took their order and suddenly a light came back into Bobby's eyes. "Who's that?" he asked as she skated away. Peggy told him the Ricketts family had moved to town a few years ago and added, "I hear she's a little fast."

"Really?" said Bobby, his curiosity piqued even further. As it turned out, Wanda was quite the little femme fatale of the Elmwood Springs high school set. A few boys already had WANDA tattooed on their arms, including the Dockrill boy, who was going to be a preacher.

She had been dating three or four different boys in town but they were no match for Bobby, who had grown into a good-looking young man. Pretty soon he and Miss Wanda Ricketts were a hot-and-heavy item and his old enthusiasm started coming back, along with his imagination.

As usual, Bobby started to romanticize Wanda and to see things that were not there. He spent a dazzled two months convinced she looked exactly like Marilyn Monroe, which could not have been further from the truth. Other than their dyed blond hair and being female, the similarity ended. When he brought her home for dinner the first time, after she had stuck her chewing gum on the side of her plate, she announced, "Me and my family are big wrestling fans. Me and Momma think Gorgeous George is cute enough to eat. Momma says he can put his shoes under her bed anytime."

"Oh, really?" said Dorothy pleasantly, but secretly horrified. Doc and Mother Smith had just stared at their plates but Bobby, oblivious to the sudden lull in the dinner conversation, continued to stare at her with a goofy look on his face. Needless to say, Dorothy had not been favorably impressed with Wanda, but she never said a word against her.

One day Bobby was down at the Trolley Car Diner going on and on about how beautiful Wanda was and asked Jimmy what he thought about the idea of them getting married. Jimmy had not said anything before but since he had been asked he said, "Frankly, I think it would be the biggest mistake you ever made. Your parents aren't going to say anything but I don't want to see you mess up your entire life just because some little carhop has you all whipped around and not thinking straight. If that girl were to come up pregnant, you're stuck with her. Think about what you're doing, buddy, before it's too late."

Just then Ed the barber came in for a chili dog and sat down. Before Jimmy went over he said quietly, "I'm telling you, that girl is not for you. You can do better than that."

Bobby felt like someone had just thrown cold water in his face. But Jimmy was right, of course. The rose-colored glasses started clearing up a little and he started noticing Wanda's black roots and how she began to look less and less like Marilyn Monroe. He suddenly took a closer look at the Ricketts family, the mother, an older version of Wanda with wrinkles and the same dyed blond hair and penciled-in eyebrows, who at fifty still wore short shorts and a halter top; the father, with the dirty fingernails and the collection of Over Sexteen magazines he kept trying to show Bobby; and the rest of the strangely misshapen Ricketts brothers and sisters. and the spell was broken.

The thought of spending the holidays with the Rickettses for the rest of his life finally did the trick. Earlier, Mother Smith had offered her opinion of the entire Ricketts family to Dorothy quite succinctly.

"Common, honey, just plain common." But when Bobby told his mother he had broken up with Wanda she did not ask why. All she said was, "Well, I'm sure you know best, dear."

When he asked Monroe what he thought he said, "I'm glad to hear it. Peggy and I hadn't wanted to say anything but that girl was as dumb as a post."

Several months later, Wanda, clearly not heartbroken over breaking up with Bobby, ran off and married the twenty-five-year-old manager of the Polar Bear drive-in.

Two weeks later, the next time Macky saw Bobby at the barbershop he said, "Had yourself a kind of a close call there, didn't you?"

It was a small town.

The Friday after Macky had run into Bobby, he was busy searching through his stock for a fifteen-foot extension cord for Old Man Henderson when the phone rang. He said, "Let me get this," and went back and picked up. "Hardware."

It was Norma on the other end. "Macky."

"Hi, honey. Can I call you back? I've got a customer."

"I'll hold on."

"Okay."

He put the phone down and returned to the old man standing in the aisle pulling out all the cords, trying to read the packages.

Macky said, "Are you sure you need fifteen feet?"

The old man said, "Yeah or I might use twenty… Do you have that?"

"What's it for?"

"I want to put my television set out on the porch so I can see the ball game."

"Don't you have a plug on the porch?"

"Well, if I did I wouldn't need an extension cord, would I?"

Macky searched through the cords. "Here's a twenty-five."

Mr. Henderson scowled at him. "How much more is it by the foot?"

"Don't worry. I'll just charge you for a fifteen-foot. I thought I had them in stock but I guess I sold them."

"Well, I guess I'd rather it be too long than too short."

"Do you think St. Louis has a chance this year?" asked Macky.

"They might… If everybody else was to suddenly drop dead."

Macky pulled out a paper bag.

"I don't need a sack," Mr. Henderson said.

"All right, well, you have a good day now."

The old man slammed the door shut too hard and the bell on the door rang in Macky's ears. Macky started putting the cords back up on the hooks, trying to figure out just how old Old Man Henderson was. He had been a friend of his grandfather's, so that would make him at least in his early eighties. Then Macky remembered that Norma was holding on.