CHAPTER 5
1970
The nausea had passed, but Mary Dell was still locked in the bathroom, kneeling on the floor in her wedding gown. Her head was still pounding and so were Taffy’s fists, demanding that Mary Dell open the door that instant or so help her . . .
“I just don’t know if marrying Donny is the right thing,” Mary Dell wailed.
“Well, you should have thought about that before!” Taffy barked.
I should have thought about a lot of things before.
She should have been more forceful when she told Donny that she couldn’t leave the fairgrounds and go out with someone she barely knew. If she hadn’t been so disappointed by the judges’ response to her dress and her wounded pride so buoyed by Donny’s, she would have. Even though she was just a few months from reaching the then-legal drinking age of nineteen and the bartender hadn’t asked to see her license, she should never have ordered that bottle of beer, the first liquor she’d ever had in her life, and two more after that. And she should have left the honky-tonk at six and gone to the pageant, like she’d promised herself she would when they arrived. And she shouldn’t have let Donny hold her so close during the slow songs, crushing the red satin bodice of her dress against his peacock-blue shirt. And she definitely shouldn’t have driven to Puny Pond with him to look at the moon. And she shouldn’t . . . Well . . . All the stuff that had happened after that, most of which she couldn’t even remember clearly.
But she did recall how the moonlight had shone so bright in her eyes and how her heart was pounding again, just like it had when Graydon picked her up out of the dirt, and the ringing of bells in her ears. Or was it violins?
It didn’t matter. Whatever it was, she shouldn’t have given in to it.
The morning after her date with Donny was a Sunday. The family drove to the Methodist church like they did every week and sat where they always sat, fourth pew back on the left. Mary Dell bowed her head and promised herself and the Good Lord she’d never let herself get in that kind of situation again. And she didn’t. Not even when Donny came around later, begging her to go out with him again—not that she could have accepted his invitation even if she’d been so inclined. Taffy had grounded her for coming in late and for skipping Lydia Dale’s pageant.
She felt bad about that. She should have been there to support her sister especially since, to everyone’s shock, Lydia Dale had not won the county crown. She’d blown the question-and-answer portion of the competition and finished as first runner-up.
Taffy was, by turns, furious, brokenhearted, and confused over the outcome. She couldn’t understand why Lydia Dale had drawn a blank when asked what sights and attractions she would recommend to someone who was visiting the county for the first time. They’d gone over the question at least three times in rehearsals.
But Mary Dell thought she knew what had gone wrong.
Donny’s brother, Graydon, had been in the pageant audience that night. Mary Dell figured that when Lydia Dale had spotted that tall, handsome cowboy sitting right up front, everything she’d practiced and all her good sense flew clean out of her head. Mary Dell understood how that kind of thing could happen to a girl.
After the pageant, Graydon asked Lydia Dale if she’d like to go for a ride on the Ferris wheel. He’d been coming around ever since. He and Donny took temporary jobs at the Baker ranch—temporary because Graydon would be shipping out for Vietnam soon.
For a girl who’d blown her shot at immortality and being crowned the Queen of all Texas, Lydia Dale was awfully chipper—in fact, she was downright giddy. Lydia Dale and Graydon went out almost every night, and she urged her sister to come along, to make it a double date with Donny, but Mary Dell declined. She didn’t trust herself. Or Donny.
It wasn’t that she thought he was a masher or anything. They’d lost their heads, both of them. But she didn’t want to take the risk of it ever happening again. She resolved to put Donny Bebee out of her mind completely. For a month or so, she did. Until she started feeling sick in the mornings.
She knew from the first that she was going to go ahead and have the baby. Mary Dell’s theology was as straightforward as she was. She figured if God had decided to make a baby, there must be some good reason for it, and far be it from her to thwart the plans of the Almighty. But that was about the only thing she knew for sure. She felt so alone.
After a couple of weeks, she confided in Lydia Dale, but swore her to secrecy.
But Lydia Dale wasn’t very good at keeping secrets. She told Graydon and he, in turn, told his brother. Upon hearing the news, Donny drove to the nearest Sears department store, bought a little ring with a diamond chip from the jewelry counter, drove to the ranch, and asked Mary Dell to be his wife. At the time, she’d felt relieved, but now she was afraid she’d made a terrible mistake.
“Momma, just tell Organza to play the songs one more time. Please? I need to think this through!”
She sat down cross-legged on the bathroom floor, hearing the sound of more footsteps and more female voices as her sister, grandmother, and great-aunt joined Taffy in the narrow hallway.
“Where’s Mary Dell?” Lydia Dale asked in an urgent half whisper. “Everybody’s getting restless. Uncle Dwayne opened the bar. He’s standing in the back drinking bourbon. Looks like a lot of the men are thinking about joining him.”
“Not that,” Taffy groaned. “Remember what happened the last time?”
Taffy, sounding almost hysterical, yelled through the keyhole. “Mary Dell, did you hear that? If Uncle Dwayne gets drunk and tries to rope one of the bridesmaids, I will never forgive you! If Marlena Benton were to hear about something like that, I’d never hear the end of it. You have got to come out here and get married right this second!”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Grandma Silky said in an exasperated voice. “No, she doesn’t. What do you care about Marlena Benton anyway? She sure doesn’t care about you.”
Silky moved next to the door and shouted, as if trying to make herself heard across a mile-wide canyon rather than two inches of a hollow-core door.
“Mary Dell? It’s Granny. Now you listen to me, honey. Baby or no baby, you do not have to marry Donny Bebee. Not unless you want to. Do you want to?”
Silky pressed her ear to the door, listening for her granddaughter’s answer. After a long moment of silence, she heard sounds of rustling silk and the toilet lid being closed and, finally, a metallic click as Mary Dell unlocked and opened the door.
“I don’t know what I want,” she said, looking into her grandmother’s eyes. “I really don’t. I’m sorry. Guess I got the whole family into this mess, haven’t I?”
Mary Dell spread out her skirts and sat down on the commode with her shoulders slumped. Silky hurried into the bathroom followed by Taffy, Lydia Dale, and Velvet—five women in one room, packed so close that the scent of their perfumes melded into a sickly-sweet smell, like leftover funeral flowers, so overpowering that Mary Dell’s nausea returned.
Aunt Velvet, who was nearsighted from so many hours spent poring over books, slid her glasses to the end of her nose and clucked her tongue.
“There, there,” she said as she patted Mary Dell’s shoulder. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. It’s the Fatal Flaw, that’s all. All the Tudmore women have suffered from it.”
Taffy made a face. “That’s ridiculous. I wore white on my wedding day.” She sniffed. “Because I deserved to.”
“More like because I nailed your bedroom window shut once Dutch came back from Korea looking so good in his uniform,” Silky muttered. “Don’t think everybody doesn’t know how it is between you and that husband of yours, Taffy. Every time Dutch looks at you sideways, you just about fall over backward.”
Taffy colored a bit, lifted her chin, and continued without acknowledging the comment. “Well, Aunt Velvet doesn’t suffer from any ‘fatal flaw,’ ” she said. “She’s always saying how, if she had to choose between the worst hound dog on earth and the best man in Too Much, she’d take the hound any day of the week.”
“But that’s because a careful study of our family history helped me identify and overcome the Fatal Flaw,” the older lady explained. “And that’s why I have stayed away from face powder, lipstick, and hair dye, and only wear black or gray dresses. No darts, no belts, no hemlines above my calves. By rigorously following this formula, I’ve successfully kept lust and suitors at bay. And,” she said with a self-satisfied nod, “I’ve been a happier woman for it.”
Taffy rolled her eyes. “Fine. Then how do you explain Momma?” she asked, gesturing to Silky. “Momma and Daddy never . . .”
Silky cleared her throat, looked at the floor, and gave her head a quick shake. Taffy stopped in mid-sentence, turning suddenly pale.
“Momma! Are you telling me that . . .”
Silky sighed, as if disappointed by her daughter’s density.
“Taffy, your daddy and I got married in May. You were born in November. Didn’t you ever stop to do the math? Oh, don’t look at me that way,” she said irritably. “I was young and stupid once too. Anyway, that’s all ancient history. What matters now is Mary Dell.”
Silky crouched down on her haunches and took Mary Dell’s smooth, pretty hands into her rough and wrinkled ones. “Honey, do you want to marry Donny?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. Grandma, how long did you know Grandpa before you married him?”
“Not long. We got married pretty quick.”
“Did you love him?”
“Hooty fell out the back of a pickup and broke his neck before your momma’s first birthday. But, for as long as it lasted, we were as happy as most folks.
“Listen, baby girl, I’ve made mistakes, plenty of them. Everybody does. But I’m not sorry I married your grandpa. And I’m not sorry I had your momma.”
She squeezed Mary Dell’s hands and glanced up and winked at Lydia Dale, who had been listening to all this with an anxious expression.
“I like my life. And no matter what you decide to do today, when you’re my age, you’ll like your life too, if you just make up your mind to do it. See if I’m not right. You’ve got good instincts, honey. You just need to follow them.”
Mary Dell sighed heavily and chewed on her bottom lip. “I just wish I knew him better. Donny seems nice. . . .”
“Oh, he is!” Lydia Dale exclaimed, squatting down next to Silky so she could be at eye level with her sister. “He must be! He’s Graydon’s brother, isn’t he?”
Taffy crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t see that as much of a recommendation. If Graydon Bebee hadn’t gotten you all distracted at the pageant, you might be Miss Texas by now!”
“Momma,” Lydia Dale answered evenly, “I love Graydon. And the second he gets back from Vietnam, I’m going to marry him. We’ve made up our minds, so you’d just better get used to the idea. As far as what happened at the pageant . . .” Lydia Dale looked at her mother and swallowed hard, as if trying to decide whether to speak her mind or hold her tongue. “That wasn’t Graydon’s fault. I answered that question exactly the way I planned to.”
Taffy’s eyes bulged. For a moment, she almost looked as if she might faint.
“I don’t understand. What are you saying? You can’t mean . . .”
Lydia Dale took a deep breath, rose to her feet, squared her shoulders, and turned to face her mother.
“I blew the question on purpose, Momma. I wanted to lose.”
Taffy sputtered and clutched at her heart, but Lydia Dale refused to be interrupted.
“Hear me out, Momma. I know how hard you worked to make me Miss Texas, but that was your dream. Not mine. It was fun at first, but I’m tired of pageants! I’m tired of false eyelashes and lip gloss and getting my hair teased. I’m tired of walking down a runway in four-inch heels and a swimsuit I had to get glued into. I’m tired of tiaras and sashes and smiling and answering stupid questions about how I’ll bring about world peace when everybody knows I’m just going to ride in parades or cut ribbons at the grand openings of supermarkets and car dealerships. And I’m tired of being so far from home all the time. . . . ”
Taffy turned pale. Looking dazed, she sank slowly down, as if her knees wouldn’t support her, until she was seated on the edge of the bathtub.
“And so far from my sister,” Lydia Dale continued. “Things haven’t been the same since I started doing the pageants. I’ve missed you, Mary Dell. But if you marry Donny and I marry Graydon, we’ll never have to be apart again!”
Lydia Dale crouched down again so she was at eye level with her twin.
“Graydon is a good man. And I’m sure Donny is too. He must be! If he wasn’t, would he have been so quick to propose after he heard about the baby? Maybe he didn’t do right, not when you two went out that night, but he’s trying to make it right. That tells you something about him, doesn’t it?
“And think!” she said urgently. “Think how it will be for us to be married to brothers and live right here in Too Much! We’ll get to see each other every day—just like Grandma and Aunt Velvet. We’ll spend holidays and birthdays together. Our children will grow up together and be very best friends. Doesn’t that sound wonderful?”
Lydia Dale’s question hung in the air, but before Mary Dell could answer her, there was a knock on the door. Dutch stepped into the crowded bathroom.
“Well, this is cozy. Kinda late for a bachelorette party, don’t you think?” He looked at Mary Dell and grinned. “You look beautiful, baby girl. You truly do. Now, what do you say? You ready to get married?”
Mary Dell hesitated for a moment, then stood up, picked an open tube of lipstick up off the counter, and applied a coat of ruby red to her lips. When she was finished, she took her father’s arm.
“Yes, Daddy. I’m ready.”