Julia Watts - Wedding Bell Blues

A heavy woman in a white polyester uniform emerged from behind the EMPLOYEES ONLY door and promptly crowed, “Well, Benny Jack McGilly, as I live and breathe!”

Lily stifled the guffaw she felt rising from her belly. Benny Jack? Mr. Tommy Hilfiger-wearing, Wall Street Journal-reading, Emory University alumnus over there was named Benny Jack?

“Hi, Maybelle. We need to get blood tests today.”

Maybelle grinned. “Blood tests? Do you mean to tell me the oldest McGilly boy is finally getting married? I never thought I’d live to see the day!”

Ben glared up from the form he was filling out. “Believe me, neither did I.”

“You having a big church wedding?” Maybelle asked, taking his paperwork.

“No. Actually, I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t say anything about it. It’s kind of a secret.”

“A secret?”

Lily felt Maybelle’s eyes on her as the chunky woman suspiciously regarded Lily’s nose ring and the baby on her lap. Lily gave the woman a jaunty wave, but it didn’t seem to alter her opinion.

“A secret. I understand,” Maybelle said.

Maybelle called Ben back first. Mimi was calmer now, sitting in the chair next to Lily and playing with her toy camera. There was precious little in the waiting room to keep patients amused: ancient copies of Field and Stream for the menfolk, equally antiquated issues of Good Housekeeping for the ladies. The kiddies were expected to amuse themselves with the Children’s Illustrated Bible, the cover of which depicted an Aryan-looking Jesus talking to an equally Aryan-looking group of children.

In the lab, Lily sat down on a stool with Mimi on her lap. Although she was sure that Mimi was too young to comprehend what had happened to her mother, Lily had noticed that since the accident Mimi had clung to her like a baby koala bear. Tiny though she was, she seemed to sense that she had already lost one of her mothers and that she needed to be extra-careful not to lose this one, too.

The lab technician swabbed Lily’s arm with alcohol and nodded at Mimi. “That Benny Jack’s little girl?”

Lily reminded herself that this was the lie she was supposed to be perpetuating. She was going to have to be careful to keep her story straight. A lifetime of honesty hadn’t prepared her for this kind of skullduggery. “Uh, yes,” she said.

“I thought so,” the lab tech replied. “She looks just like him.”

Sure, lady. Whatever, Lily thought. But she smiled benignly. “Let’s see. I guess you’ll have to put your little girl down while I draw your blood. She can crawl around on the floor; she won’t hurt nothin’.”

Lily set Mimi down and turned her head as the needle entered her non-tattooed arm. Tattoo needles, she could handle. But she hated having blood drawn.

As Lily queasily watched the syringe fill with red fluid, a middle-aged, smiling nurse stuck her head in the door. “Hi, honey,” she said to Lily. “I just wanted to stop by to ask if you had any questions about ...” She pursed her lips demurely. “Married lady things. I’ve got all kinds of pamphlets, if you need

’em.”

“Mama!” Mimi squealed happily. Despite the lab tech’s certainty that she wouldn’t “bother nothing,” Mimi had managed to dump an entire bag of cotton balls on the floor and was petting them as if they were kittens.

The nurse looked at the baby, then at Lily. “I guess you won’t be needing any pamphlets, will you, hon?” She scurried off.

“Poor ole Bernice,” the lab tech said, sticking a round band-aid on Lily’s arm. “She just can’t get it through her head that there ain’t a girl alive these days that needs one of her little pamphlets on what a girl should expect on her wedding night.”

Lily laughed. “I guess girls are more sophisticated these days.” More sophisticated than you’ll ever know, she was thinking. “I’m sorry my daughter wrecked your lab.”

“Oh, don’t worry a thing about it. She’s just as cute as she can be. If you and Benny Jack wanna check back in half an hour, we should have your test results ready.”

After a quick trip to the Piggly Wiggly for cold Cokes and Pampers, Ben and Lily returned to the doctor’s office. “Congratulations!” Maybelle crowed when they walked in. “Y’all are healthy and compatible.”

At the sound of the word compatible, Ben and Lily both burst out laughing.

The Faulkner County Courthouse was typical of small-town courthouse architecture: brick, columns, clock tower. In a stark, fluorescently lighted office, Lily and Ben waited for their license to be processed along with another soon-to-be wed couple. The man looked to be in his late thirties. His beard and mustache were tinged with gray. His bride-to-be, however, couldn’t have been more than sixteen years old. She was big-eyed and bony except for her belly, which was swollen with pregnancy. The girl nodded at Mimi, who was standing up while holding onto Lily’s knee. “How old?” the girl asked.

“Thirteen months,” Lily said. “She’s working on learning how to walk.”

“She’s pretty,” the girl said, with a wistful smile on her face. “I can’t wait til my baby comes, so I can play with him.”

Lily smiled at the girl, but looking at her made her sad — this little girl who was going to play with her baby like a new doll. Lily couldn’t even look at the grown man who had taken his bride’s girlhood away.

Finally the clerk returned with Ben and Lily’s paperwork. “There ya go,” she said brightly, “and congratulations.”

Lily was exhausted from hauling Mimi around. “So, where do we go to get this thing over with?”

“Over to the City Drug,” Ben said. “The pharmacist there’s the justice of the peace.”

Lily followed him down the stairs. “We’re getting married in a drug store?”

“Yup.”

“Well, it’s handy, I guess. We can get married and buy condoms for our wedding night in the same convenient location.”

Ben stumbled on the stairs, steadied himself on the railing, and looked back at Lily with an expression of animal terror.

“I was joking! God.”

The old lady in the half-glasses at the City Drug eyed Ben. “You’re Big Ben McGilly’s boy, ain’tcha?”

“Yes. Ma’am, and we’re here to get married.”

“A McGilly getting married in the City Drug? I’ve never heard the like! Why, when your little brother got married, they had it over at the country club. I heard tell they floated candles and flowers in that pond out by the golf course —”

“I know,” Ben said impatiently. “I was there. The thing is, we’re in kind of a hurry.”

The woman looked Lily up and down. “I don’t see why. She ain’t showing yet. And that little girl’s just about big enough to be a flower girl.” When neither Lily nor Ben responded, she shrugged and hollered, “Frank! Wedding!”

“Bring ’em on back,” a gruff voice called from the back of the store.

Frank was a paunchy, middle-aged guy in a too-tight pharmacist’s smock. “Y’all got your license?” Ben presented the paperwork, and Frank glanced over it disinterestedly. “All right, then. Let’s get started. Doris, you wanna witness?”