In Stereo Where Available Page 17

  All of the girls nodded. Marci gathered up her hoopskirts to her knees and got into a runner’s crouch.

  “Aren’t they mixing up two different scenes in Gone with the Wind?” asked Jerry’s mother perplexedly. “Because the part where she shoots the deserter is different from—”

  “I don’t think they’re really going for authenticity, Mom,” said Stella.

  “Go!” yelled Brent Holloway.

  All the girls took off like racehorses, throwing the clothes in the dresser drawers every which way, grabbing the baby dolls by their arms, and shoving the wallets down into their diapers.

  “Grace and Marci are dead even at maze!” shouted Brent.

  Madison’s pig turned around and tried to run back to its cage. “Damn you!” she shouted at it, her baby doll’s head banging against her hoops as she ran. Marci already had her pig in the swamp and was running toward the shooting gallery.

  “Grace is falling behind,” called Brent.

  Madison slammed the gate behind her squealing pig and dashed for the shooting gallery. But it was too late. Marci planted a bullet right into the heart of her target just as Madison dropped her baby to her feet.

  “It’s Marci!” announced Brent.

  “Damn it!” yelled Madison.

  “So does that mean she wins?” asked Jerry’s mother.

  “No, that just means they can’t vote her out,” Jerry explained. “They only win if they get chosen by Rhett or Ashley.”

  “Chosen for what?”

  “To get engaged,” I told her.

  “For real?”

  “Ostensibly.”

  “My goodness. I don’t know about this.” She folded her arms over her bosom. “What does your mother think of all this, Phoebe?”

  “I’m not sure,” I admitted. “I don’t think she takes anything Madison does all that seriously. Unless it’s, um…especially remarkable.”

  Once the girls had voted off a Yankee girl, Madison was the only one remaining against three Rebels. She bit her lip as the girl grabbed her train case and hatbox and waved good-bye. After the commercial, the scene opened on Brent Holloway receiving a pair of small velvet ring boxes from across the counter at a jewelry store. He set them into an authentic Confederate ammo case and walked purposefully out the door to a waiting train, steam pouring from the locomotive. As he pulled into the station closest to the plantation, he hung off the side of the front car, ammo box under his arm, his cotton shirt fluttering in the wind. He jumped off and ran slowly toward a covered horse-drawn carriage. A guy in a coat and tails closed the little door behind him, the top-hatted driver cracked the whip, and he was off to the mansion.

  “I certainly hope those girls say yes,” said Jerry’s mother.

  “They will,” I assured her. “Saying no would be like throwing away a winning lottery ticket.”

  The four girls were gathered in the parlor, wearing gorgeous silk dresses and sitting carefully in their armchairs so their hoops would stay down. Madison was wringing her hands. Brent came in with Rhett and Ashley in ascots and short coats, each with a red rose boutonniere.

  “Ladies, these men have thought long and hard about which of you they would like to spend the rest of their lives with,” said Brent Holloway, his smile sending a little shadow into the cleft in his chin. “If your name is called, please take your gentleman’s arm and accompany him to the piazza for your special moment together.”

  “I think your sister and Rhett already had a special moment together, didn’t they?” asked Jerry. I smacked his arm.

  Ashley chose Marci. As they walked off together, the two remaining Rebel girls reached for each other’s hands and squeezed them until their knuckles turned white. I waited impatiently through the proposal and grumbled in frustration when the show went to commercial.

  “Oh, come on,” I said.

  Jerry patted my hand. “You know he’s going to pick her.”

  “Not necessarily. That other girl on the sofa was the one he was talking to in the hallway the night they went out on their date.”

  “Was she really?” Jerry stroked his chin. “You know, I can’t tell them apart.”

  A palpable silence had settled over the parlor where the three girls remained. Brent handed the last jewelry box to Rhett, who slipped it into his jacket pocket and folded his hands behind his back. A breathless pause. Brent raised a knowing eyebrow. Rhett extended one hand toward Madison.

  “Grace,” he said, “will you please join me on the piazza?”

  I jumped up from the sofa. “Aaaaaah!”

  “She won!” yelled Stella.

  Jerry rubbed my back as I jumped up and down. “She won!” I shouted. “She won!”

  Out on the piazza, with Ashley and Marci off for a walk in the rose garden, Rhett got down on one knee and proposed to Madison with a gigantic ring that glittered like a disco ball. Tears beaded her eyes. They hugged. The edges of the picture fogged, and a McDonald’s commercial came on. I reached for a tissue from the plastic-canvas box cover with the state of Florida done in needlepoint on its side.

  “Congratulations,” said Jerry’s mother. She reached forward and patted me on the knee.

  “Thank you,” I said, blowing my nose. “I wish I could talk to her. She must be so happy.”

  “Why don’t you give her a call?” Jerry’s father asked. “I don’t mind the long distance.”

  I shook my head. “No. I mean, I have my cell phone. They just won’t let us talk to them until tomorrow.”

  “Is that right?” asked his mother.

  “Yeah. They haven’t been allowed to talk to anybody since they got there.” I wiped my nose again. “No outside contact.”

  “So…” Jerry turned to me, caught his breath, and then asked, “She doesn’t know about his prison record and his kids and all that?”

  “No, I guess not.”

  “Oh, my,” said Jerry’s mother.

  I waved my hand and reached for another tissue. “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “She’ll just be so happy she won that she won’t even care. I’ll be right back. I need to call my mom.”

  I left Jerry and his family sitting in front of the flickering TV, watching the post-finale reunion special: A Very Special Civil War Christmas.

  Later that night, after the excitement of Madison’s win had died down somewhat and Jerry’s mother had gone off to bed in her ancient pink bathrobe and curlers, Jerry and I lay in our bed facing each other and talking quietly. His father was still out in the living room watching My Three Sons in the dark. Jerry stroked my hip softly under the covers, both of us conscious of the wide-open doorway, the windows all around us.

  “I love you,” he said.

  “I love you, too.”

  “Are you happy for your sister?”

  “Yeah, I’m really happy for her. She wanted this so much. I can’t wait to meet the guy.”

  “You think he loves her?”

  “I don’t know. If he doesn’t, he will. She’s a great person. I’m sure he’ll see that when he really gets to know her.”

  He lifted his hand from my hip and stroked a finger along my cheek. “Then maybe she’s more like you than you think.”

  I smiled. “Thanks. You’re not too bad yourself.”

  He smiled back abashedly. “Hey, Fee?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the drinking thing sooner. I kept putting it off, and then I wasn’t expecting everything to move as fast as it did on the drive down here. It sort of snuck up on me.”

  “That’s okay. I can live with it. You said you’ve got it under control, right?”

  “Yeah. It took me a few years to get it down, but I’m fine, really. When I’m under a lot of stress, it gets trickier, but I haven’t screwed up in eight years. Not once.”

  “I believe you.” I tucked my hand under the pillow. “Hey, can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure.”

  “Are you ever sorry you didn’t get
to go out with Karen?”

  “You mean Karen from the conference?”

  “Yeah, that one.”

  He shook his head against the pillow. “No. I’m glad I met you.”

  “But, I mean, apart from that. Do you ever regret that you didn’t have a chance with her?”

  “There is no ‘apart from that,’“ he said. “I couldn’t be happier that she blew me off. Anyway, I only talked to her for two minutes. I really don’t care at all that I didn’t see her again. Don’t even give it another thought.”

  “You wrote a pretty nice poem about her.”

  “I’m an English teacher. You could hand me a pen right now and I could write a poem about you.” He grinned. “Softly breathes my love beside me…the warmth of her skin a place for dreaming…”

  I laughed. “That’s cheesy.”

  “So’s the other one. I never said I was Shakespeare.”

  Jerry’s dad pointed the remote at the TV; the picture snapped into a long vertical line and disappeared, and the room fell silent. He stood up and wandered off down the hall, tapping the light switch on his way out. The tree frogs outside were singing; above our heads, the fans on the mint-green ceiling turned steadily, sending a ticklishly cool breeze sweeping down over our shoulders in waves, like a bird’s wings beating the air.

  “Let’s give it a try,” he whispered.

  I hesitated. The night before, Jerry’s mother had made what seemed like two dozen trips to the hallway bathroom, preventing us from doing anything more than some R-rated cuddling. “What about your parents?”

  “Don’t worry. My dad and I had a ‘guy talk’ on the course earlier. I think I got my point across.”

  “Are you sure?”

  He put his arm around my waist and pulled me against him, belly to belly. “No, and right at this moment, I don’t really care.”

  I didn’t care, either. I was hungry for the way his body had felt the first time, long and warm and tangled up in mine, and for the fire I had seen in him when we were together. I didn’t want to think about Karen or Serena or the girl in the Greene Turtle T-shirt. I only wanted Jerry, alone with me in the spare privacy of the thin-blanketed bed, with no room for anyone else in between.

  When I got out of bed the next morning, Jerry was already sitting at the kitchen table with his parents, chatting about golf and drinking a cup of coffee. His pink sunburn had already faded into a nice-looking tan. As I wandered into the kitchen, he smiled at me and got up from the table, kissing me on the cheek. He smelled like wintergreen shaving gel.

  “Good morning,” he said cheerfully. “Hey, get your shoes on. We need to get on the road.”

  “Do I have time to get some breakfast, at least?”

  “If you insist. Get your shoes on, anyway. We can have breakfast outside.”

  “Outside?”

  “Yeah, it’s a nice Florida morning. Trust me.” He smacked me on the butt and gave me a nudge toward my sandals. As I slipped them onto my feet, he pulled the back door open and in his best Rhett Butler voice said, “Phoebe, will you please join me on the piazza?”

  I looked out into the backyard. “I don’t see a piazza.”

  “Yeah, my parents are cheap. Say, you want an orange? You can eat them right off the tree this time of year.”

  “Sure.” I followed Jerry over to one of the orange trees and started to pull one off of one of the bottom branches.

  “No, not that one. That one’s not ripe.”

  I looked at it. “How can you tell?”

  “Color and shading. Anyway, the ones closer to the top of the tree get ripe first. I’ll show you.” He pulled himself up onto one of the lower branches and slowly climbed his way up the tree.

  I put my hand up against my eyes to shade them. “What on earth are you doing?”

  “I’m getting breakfast. What does it look like I’m doing?”

  “It looks like you’re getting ready to break your neck.”

  “Oh, that’s overrated. I’ve already done that once.” He picked an orange and started descending back through the branches. At the bottom he flipped the orange over and showed me the navel on the bottom. “See? Look at the shape of the navel. That’s how you can tell it’s ripe.”

  “Really? Jeez, they never tell you that at the grocery store. I know the thing about pressing at the top of the cantaloupe, but I never heard the navel thing.”

  “Local secret. Here, you try.”

  I laughed. “You want me to climb that tree? I don’t know.”

  “Come on, it’s easy. Don’t tell me you’re willing to commit breaking and entering on school property, but you’re not adventurous enough to climb an orange tree.”

  “You actually committed the breaking and entering. I was only an accessory.”

  “Oh, just go.” He put his hands against my waist and steered me toward the tree. “I’ll spot you if you fall.”

  I climbed up a few branches, dodging the bees that buzzed around between the leaves. About eight feet up, I reached for an orange and looked down at Jerry. “Is this one okay?”

  “Nope. That one would taste like battery acid.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive. My parents have been living here for like twelve years, remember? I know my oranges.”

  I sighed and climbed up a few more feet. “Keep going,” Jerry called.

  “I’m not sure I want an orange this badly. How about this one?”

  “Nope. Look at that navel. Nowhere near.”

  “Jerry, I’m like fifteen feet up. You can’t even see the navel.”

  “I’ve got a well-trained eye. No, not that one, either.”

  “How about this one?”

  He squinted and made a little acquiescing nod. “Yeah, that one looks okay.”

  “Finally.” I climbed back down the tree quickly. “You’re nuts. I’m not doing that again.”

  Jerry sat down with his back against the tree trunk and started to peel his orange. “You city folk don’t understand the value of a little hard work.”

  “City folk. You’re from Maryland, same as me.” I sat down beside him and stuck my thumb into the top of the orange peel.

  “Yes, but you’re from Takoma Park. I’m from Lusby. I spent the first fifteen summers of my life dangling chicken necks in the bay to catch crabs while you and your kind were buying them off the back of a truck.”

  “Excuse me. You’re the one who thinks carry-out is too much work when there are a zillion delivery—” I pulled my orange in half and something fell out into my lap. I let out a little screech, thinking it was a bee.

  “Something wrong?”

  “Yeah, there’s something in my orange.” I stood up and brushed off my shorts, then bent over to pick up the thing that had fallen to the ground. It was a diamond ring.

  “Oh, you got one of the lucky ones,” said Jerry.

  I held it in my palm and looked wide-eyed at him. He nodded earnestly, eating a section of his orange. “I told you I could tell by the navel,” he said.

  I looked down at the ring in my hand, then back up at Jerry. Finally he laughed, carefully balanced his orange skin-down in the dirt, and shifted forward onto one knee. He took the ring from my palm and reached for my left hand.

  “I love you, Phoebe,” he said. “You’re the best doggone thing that ever happened to me, and I want to be with you forever. Will you marry me?”

  I swallowed hard. “Of course I will.”

  He slid the ring onto my finger, and as I held my hand up in front of me, I thought of Madison, the tears beading her eyes, her impossible hopes made real.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  We got back into town late the next evening, surprised to find that an inch of snow had fallen in our absence. The plants were a little droopy, and the floors were wispy with cat hair, but everything was otherwise quiet and normal—from Jerry’s perspective, at least. As I stepped into the foyer and looked over the living room and kitchen, letting the cats rub up agains
t my legs, I realized I was standing in the house where I would live with Jerry as his wife. It was exciting and disorienting at the same time.

  He went across the street to pay the teenager who had watched the cats, and I waited for him, sitting on the sofa without taking off my coat. When he came back inside, he grinned at me and leaned against the wall to kick off his snow-crusted sneakers.

  “Is it that cold in here?” he asked.

  “No, it’s fine. Why?”

  “You’ve still got your coat on.”

  “I’m going to head home in a minute. Lauren’s been watching the animals for almost a week.”

  “Oh, she can handle them for one more night. It’s almost nine o’clock. Just stay over here.”

  I tucked my hands between my knees. “I don’t know. I don’t want to take advantage of her.”

  He hung his coat in the closet and shrugged. “You’re not. Just move your animals over here tomorrow. Solve that problem once and for all.”

  “Then you’ll be stuck dealing with them all the time.”

  “Not if you come with them.”

  I frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean you’re over here half the time anyway. And we’re going to get married, right? So they’ll all be over here sooner or later. So will you, and—” He put his hands on his hips and gave me an appealing look. “I’m asking you to move in with me.”

  I folded an arm over my waist and bit my knuckle. “Oh.”

  “You don’t really want to go back, do you? Sleep alone all week long? Make dinky little one-person dinners? I mean, what’s the point in both of us living like we’re single when we don’t have to?”

  Lauren would have a million answers to that question, but I didn’t have even one. The truth was, I’d fallen asleep in Jerry’s arms for four nights in a row, and the idea of going back to my apartment and sleeping alone sounded downright repellant. I could have moved in with him that night and never looked back. But it wasn’t quite that easy.