Julia Watts - Wedding Bell Blues

Ida nodded at Lily and emitted a frosty “Hello.”

“Hi,” Lily said as brightly as she could manage. “I’m glad y’all could make it.”

Ida’s frostiness melted away when her eyes came to rest on Mimi. “There she is!” she whooped.

“Grandma’s little precious!”

Mimi stretched out her arms. “Gamma!” Ida picked up her granddaughter and held her close.

“She took her first steps today,” Lily said.

“She did?” Ida crooned, “Gwamma’s little angel’s getting to be a big girl. Charles, did you hear that?”

“Sure did.” Charles shifted his feet uncomfortably, obviously wishing he was in a setting where he would feel more comfortable, like a book burning or a Klan rally. He looked over at Mike for a cue. Lily had noticed how both Ida and Charles tended to follow Mike’s lead. To them, their son was one of the greatest minds of this, or any, century. Lily had no doubt that contesting her custody of Mimi had been Mike’s big idea ... and that he had convinced Ida and Charles of its wisdom.

“Hel-lo!” Jeanie half sang, emerging from the kitchen as though she was making her big entrance in a play. “Please, sit down, and make yourselves at home. I’m Jeanie McGilly, Ben’s mama.” She shook hands with her guests, who introduced themselves. “I am so sorry that my husband hasn’t arrived yet. I’m sure you know how hard it is to drag a man away from work, don’t you, Ida?” Jeanie’s smile was stunning. “Can I get you folks anything to drink before dinner?”

Lily saw Charles recoil slightly. The Maycombs were teetotalers who regarded anyone who drank so much as a beer a day as a hopeless alcoholic. Jeanie must have noticed Charles’s reaction, too, because she added, “Iced tea? Lemonade?”

They all sat in the living room, glasses of lemonade in hand, unable to come up with a single topic of conversation. Lily sat close to Ben on the couch, her hand in his. It was difficult to pretend to be in love. Real love was such a natural flow of feeling that it was hard to know how to fake it.

“So, Lily,” Ida said at the point where the sipping of lemonade was becoming a deafening sound,

“how did you and Ben meet?”

“Oh, we’ve been friends for years,” Lily said, trying to smile at Ben adoringly. “It was only recently that we started to become ... more.” She attempted a giggle, but stopped it when she decided she sounded demented.

“Yeah,” Ben added, “Lily and me together—who’d have thought it?”

“It’s just like that movie When Harry Met Sally,” Jeanie said, “where the couple’s been friends for years before they realize they were meant to be together. I just love mushy movies like that, don’t you, Ida?”

“We don’t see many movies,” Charles answered for her. “Too much bad language.”

Jeanie smiled politely “It is a sight, isn’t it?”

“Well, I think we all know who’s in charge of Hollywood,” Mike said “And it’s not the Christians.”

Lily squeezed Ben’s hand so hard she expected to hear the bones crack. They had been sitting in uncomfortable silence for a few moments when the front door swung open. “Oh, that must be my husband,” Jeanie said.

It was. Big Ben was wearing his customary plain white T-shirt, blue jeans, and work boots, but he was smeared from head to toe with what appeared to be axle grease. His lips looked startlingly pink in contrast to the black gunk on his face. “One of the blame machines at the mill broke down, and I had to fix it. You want something done right, you gotta do it yourself.” He nodded at the Maycombs. “I’m Benny Jack’s daddy, by the way. Ever’body calls me Big Ben.” He looked down at his grease-blackened paw.

“Don’t mean to seem standoffish, but I don’t reckon y’all’d wanna be shaking my hand right now.”

“Honey —” Jeanie’s voice was tense. “Why don’t you take a shower before you put the steaks on?”

“I reckon I will.” Big Ben wiped his brow, smearing grease across his forehead. “Think I’ll just grab me a be — a Co’Cola first.” It was Big Ben’s custom to consume a six-pack of Budweiser between the time he got home from work and the time he went to bed, but Lily had asked him to abstain while in the Maycombs’ presence.

Later, as they sat around the dining room table, everyone but Lily and Mimi slicing into huge, bloody slabs of steak, Ida chirped, “Lily, I just don’t see how you can stand to be a vegetarian. I mean, what do you eat?”

Lily smiled so tensely that her jaws ached. “Everything but meat.” She speared a forkful of salad.

“Well,” Charles began, “doesn’t it say in the Bible, though, that the Lord gave man dominion over animals?”

“Well, Lily’s softhearted when it comes to animals,” Ben said. “You know how women are.”

Charles, Ben, Mike, and Big Ben all shared a laugh about the sentimentality of womenfolk. While wringing her napkin under the table as though it were a human neck, Lily noticed that Jeanie rolled her eyes at the men, while Ida laughed right along with them.

They were very different women, Jeanie and Ida. While Jeanie might enjoy reading a romance novel while lounging in the pool, she definitely knew the difference between fantasy and reality. She never let a man have the final word just because of his gender, and as a mother and a businesswoman, she exuded competence and confidence.

Ida, however, lived in a world in which she unquestioningly took orders from God and her husband, not necessarily in that order. No matter what her husband and son said, she smiled in agreement.

If Ida ever had any complaints, Lily was sure that she muttered them under her breath instead of saying them out loud.

“You know,” Charles began, “I was just saying when we were driving through Versailles how I kinda envy y’all for living in this small town. Some of the best folks anywhere live in small-town America—God-fearing, hardworking people who aren’t afraid to do for each other.”

Or to mind each other’s business, Lily thought.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Charles continued, “I like where we live out in Cobb County. I could never live right in Atlanta, though. There’s a certain element there I just don’t want to associate with. I think you know who I mean: the crack dealers, the prostitutes, just all the bla —”

“People who haven’t found Jesus yet,” Mike finished for him.

Of course, Lily thought. You Lieutenants of the Lord are willing to disguise your racism in order to preserve the patriarchy.

“Well, of course,” Ida said, smiling sweetly, “there are ... undesirables wherever you go. In small towns, you get the trailer trash and the Holy Rollers.”

“How’s that?” Big Ben asked, leaning over the table intently.

“What my wife means is, those Church of God people,” Charles said. “You know, the ones that shout and dance and speak in tongues and act crazy.”

“They’re very unrefined,” Ida said, with a superior simper.