A barbeque in Jasper County does not mean hamburgers and chicken breasts on a fancy gas grill. Yankees call anything you cook outside “barbeque.” The word barbeque in Ray’s neck of the woods is a noun, not a verb, and it means a whole hog tied to a spit with chicken wire and rope and roasted in an outdoor oven, usually in someone’s backyard or some parking lot. And the fixin’s that must accompany it are baked beans, collard greens, white rolls, cole slaw, and rice topped with a sweet gravy made from the drippings and other unmentionables that the pack calls hash. Jasper folks sort of take the “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach with the hash. We don’t want to know what’s in it, Ray thinks, but it sure tastes good.
Cousin Willy hosts a barbeque in honor of Ray’s birthday every few years in their backyard, and it’s always the same thing: a fifty-pound hog he buys from Marvin’s Meats that he cooks slowly on the charcoal pit by the dock. He’s been rotating the beast every hour since sunrise, and Ray has never seen him so excited.
“Whatcha got up your sleeve?” she asked him as he and Justin shooed her out of the shed this morning.
“You’ll find out,” he says, trying to conceal a grin. “Now go on and get ready for your shopping spree.”
He’s even consulted with the gals on this party, and they’ve brought over red and white checked tablecloths for the tables he hauled over from his office. Hilda is out there right now putting out Miss C. and the cutest little old-fashioned ceramic piggy banks on the tables which R.L. has stuffed with sweet little arrangements of bright orange zinnias and black-eyed Susans and forget-me-nots. This is the one party that Ray stays out of, but she is thankful that the gals guide Cousin Willy with the decor, invitations, and the guest list.
“I’ve only got one request,” she said to him a few weeks ago when he started making the birthday plans.
“Name it,” he said as he scribbled down the menu on a legal pad.
“Just don’t invite that Texas transplant, and I’ll be happy as a clam.”
Cousin Willy scanned the guest list and found Vangie Dreggs’s name and address.
“Kitty B. put her on here,” he said, and he squinted with concern.
Ray’s stomach tightened, and she could feel the heat rising up and around her neck.
“That’s because Kitty B. doesn’t see what I see.”
“And what’s that?” he said. “You know Vangie’s gotten real involved with the civic life around here and the ACE Basin preservation, and it might just hurt her feelings, Ray.”
“You mean you are letting her buy her way in too?” Ray picked up an old copy of the church bulletin in the mail pile and fanned her face. “I’ve told you before, the woman is bad news, and I’ve been around her enough now to know. She’s bringing strange ideas into the church and she’s selling old family properties to people from way off. Before long we’ll be surrounded by strangers and dark houses that serve as second homes that the owners will use once or twice a year. What kind of civic life will that yield, Cousin?”
“C’mon now, Ray,” he said, his eyes turning soft on her. “It does a place good to freshen up the gene pool from time to time. You can’t deny that can you, sweet?”
As she started to throw the bulletin at him, she saw Vangie Dreggs’s name at the top of the page of announcements. The Lone Star had joined the flower guild and the altar guild, and Capers had appointed her as the new head of the evangelism committee too. Under her committee title she had written a bold and capitalized blurb that said, “HEALING PRAYER REVIVAL DAY—JANUARY 5TH. MARK YOUR CALENDARS!”
Oh brother. Ray threw the whole thing at Willy. It fell apart in midair and landed at his feet.
“I’m not talking about gene pools,” she said. “I’m talking about my fifty-fifth birthday, and I do not want that woman spoiling the evening with her booming voice and her fake eyeballs and her less than appropriate talk of real estate and healing prayer, all right?”
Willy picked up the bulletin and read the blurb, then chuckled. “It’s your party,” he said. Then he stood up and put his arm around her, which would have been nice had she not been so durn hot.
“Thank you,” she said smiling at him as she thought, If this doesn’t send her a message then nothing will.
Cousin Willy pulled Ray close to his thick chest and said, “I want you to enjoy yourself.”
That is the truth. He does want me to enjoy myself, Ray thinks. Today the marquee in front of the Jasper Motor Lodge reads, “Happy Birthday, Ray,” and so does the digital sign at the National Bank of South Carolina, and she knows it’s all his doing.
And so is the fact that their son, William, came into town from Atlanta with Carson, his chic and urbane wife. They drive up around lunchtime in this sporty little convertible BMW with the top down. During their driveway conversation, Ray looks at her reflection in the mirrored sunglasses covering her son and daughter-in-law’s eyes—a short round version of herself like the one she stares at in the wavy mirror at the county fair.
“I see myself in your glasses, Will,” Justin says as he rides up on his bicycle with a roll of wrapping paper in a Family Dollar bag.
“Oh, yeah,” William says. He pulls off his glasses and lets them drop around his neck on the nylon strap that holds them together in the back.
Carson rubs her painted lips together. They are so glossy that Ray expects to see her reflection in them too. Then Carson pulls off her sunglasses and snaps them into a bright red case with Armani written across the top of it.
Carson is from a wealthy Atlanta family, and she and William are both lawyers at the same labor law firm. Truth be told, Ray has always resented her a little for wooing William away from his home. Of course Jasper could never compete with Hotlanta, but Ray kind of thought William would eventually settle back down here and get interested in state politics. He’s shown zero interest in that since Carson entered the picture.
“I’m traveling all the time, Daddy,” he says to Cousin Willy as Ray gets them a Co-Cola and serves up some pickled shrimp that Willy and Justin caught in their sweet spot the other day. The sweet spot is some bend in a creek off the Edisto River, but those two will never divulge the exact location, not even to Ray.
Carson puts her hand on the back of Ray’s tall and handsome son as he puffs up his chest and continues, “Just last week I was in San Francisco and Seattle, and then another associate and I stopped by Las Vegas for two nights on our way home. Our wives flew out to meet us, and I won twelve hundred bucks over the weekend. Can you believe it?”
“Sounds like you’re livin’ mighty high on the hog, Son,” Willy says.
“It’s not too bad.” William punches his dad on the shoulder before silencing the beep coming from his cell phone. His eyes narrow as he studies the number, then slips the phone into the back pocket of his corduroy pants.
“You get work calls on a Saturday?” Ray asks.
Carson chuckles and nods. “Yeah,” she says. “We do.”
Now I tell you one thing, Ray thinks, I never would have said “yeah” to my mother-in-law. Mama didn’t teach me all I needed to know about etiquette, but I certainly knew enough to include my “ma’am” and “sir” with my “yes” and “no,” and I answered my elders that way until they met the grave. Carson is from a nice family and ought to know better.
Just then they all hear a large thwomp from the edge of RoundO Creek, and Tuxedo runs onto the dock and barks at the swirling water.
“Get back here, boy!” Willy hollers harshly down at him.
“Look at the size of that thing,” William says, pointing to the water, where two bulbous eyes and a large, square snout surface.
“Uh!” Carson says, grabbing William by the arm. “What is that?”
As the pointed knobs of the back and the tail surface, she shrieks and covers her mouth.
“It’s just a gator, honey,” he says patting her.
Justin and Willy laugh as Tuxedo runs up onto the back deck and growls.
“An alligator?” she says.
“Heck, yeah,” Justin says. “You mean you haven’t ever seen one?”
He looks into her dark green eyes as if she were quite a mystery.
“Um, no,” she says. She shakes her head in what seems to be a cross between disgust and disbelief.
“They don’t have those in Buckhead, Justin,” Cousin Willy says, “except in the handbag section of the department stores.”
“What’s he doing here?” Carson says.
“Oh, they come in and out of here from time to time,” Willy says. “There’s an overpopulation of them right now, and they’re looking for food.”
“He probably smells the hog,” Ray says.
“Yep,” Willy says. “He wants an invite to Ray’s party, but he’s not going to get one.”
“What are you going to do about him?” Carson says.
“Eh, we’ll give him a few days to get out of here.” He flashes a smile. “If he doesn’t, then we’ll go in after him.”
“Tell William about last week’s hunt,” Justin says as he bounces on the balls of his feet.
“Yeah,” William says. “You said you had a story for me.”
“Well.” Willy glances back at Ray, and she nods because she thinks Carson can handle the wildlife story.
“I shot a beautiful buck last week from twelve,” Willy says.
“What’s twelve?” Carson asks. She’s not taking her eye off the gator, who remains motionless in the center between their dock and the salt marsh on the other side of the creek.
A blue heron lands for a moment on the edge of the water, but it quickly takes flight when the gator turns ever so slightly in its direction.
“That’s one of the deer stands on Dr. Prescott’s hunting property,” William says, as he puts his wide hands around the back of her neck and gives her a little massage.
“It’s the one built in a tree overlooking a tidal creek that feeds into the Edisto River.”
“That’s right,” Willy says, and Ray can tell he’s proud that William remembers, even though he hasn’t been hunting with his daddy in close to three years now.
“Anyhow it was the start of the rut season, and I spotted a nice-sized doe walking out at dusk, and she was followed by a beautiful buck with a nice-sized rack.”
Willy spreads out his arms wide to indicate the size.
“A ten point,” Justin adds. “At least 150 pounds.”
“Man,” William says. “So is the rack at the taxidermist?”
“Ooh,” Carson says, squinting her carefully plucked eyebrows.
“Nope,” Justin knocks William on the elbow. “Listen.”
“Okay, so I had a nice clean shot at his broad side, and I hit him smack in the shoulder, as far as I could tell.”
Carson puts her face into William’s chest, but Willy is too excited to stop now.
“Anyhow, the doe took off into the woods, and the buck had enough in him to dart across the creek to the other side of the bank, where he collapsed on an oyster bank.”
“So what did you do?” William asks.
“Well, I put on my waders and took one step into the creek to retrieve her when a gator—must of been about a nine-footer—skulked up onto the bank and grabbed the buck’s hind legs and dragged him down into the water.”
“No way!” William says, his eyes lighting up.
Carson covers up her ears and frowns.
“Yep,” Justin nods right behind Willy.
“It was unbelievable,” Willy says. “Darnedest thing I’d ever seen.”
“I’m sure glad he didn’t cross that river,” Ray says. “If that gator was big enough to take that deer, who knows what he could have done to your father?”
“Eh.” Willy waves Ray away. He’s taken care of a few nuisance alligators in his time, and he doesn’t seem to fear them.
“We could go wrestle that one down right now, Uncle,” Justin says, rubbing his hands together, “before he gets Aunt Ray’s hog.”
Willy makes a side-angled glance at William and winks.
“Want to, Son?”
“What?” Carson uncovers her ears. “You mean go into the creek and get that huge reptile?”
“Sure,” Cousin Willy says.
Carson pinches William’s back and says to her father-in-law, “Are you insane?”
“Carson,” William says, as he tugs on a strand of her smooth, golden hair. “Daddy’s been catching alligators most of his life.”
She whispers something in his ear; then William shakes his head. “Better not, Daddy.”
“I agree,” Ray says, patting Carson on her back. “I want y’all in one piece for my party, and that gator wouldn’t think of rankling a yard full of people for a bite of barbeque.”
“C’mon, Uncle,” Justin says. “I’m ready to get my rope and go.”
“The girls are right,” Willy says. “We’ll get him next week if he doesn’t move on.”
Then Willy turns to his son and his nephew. “Let’s check the pig,” he says, and they follow him out to the charcoal pit, where he lifts the lid and turns the hog over so it’s upside down.
“Good grief,” Carson says, looking at the spectacle. “This is too much for me, Mrs. Montgomery. Let’s go shopping for your birthday.”
“Okay, darlin’,” Ray says, a little perplexed by the woman’s fear and a little concerned about her hold over William.
Hunting used to be her son’s out-and-out passion. He used to drive for hours from college to hunt down here, but ever since they sent him off to that expensive law school in Atlanta, he doesn’t do that anymore. Ray has always been thankful that Justin has Cousin Willy for his father figure, but now she’s glad that Cousin Willy has Justin. She can’t imagine Justin ever leaving town, and they’ll likely have a good time together fishing and hunting for years to come.
An hour later Ray and Carson are at a new store on King Street where Annie’s Boutique used to be. A stylish but bohemian-looking lady Ray’s age practically coerces her into trying on a brown and orange cotton pants outfit with small splotches of turquoise tie-dye designs all around it and a large necklace made up of rectangular turquoise stones. Ray feels a little strange in it, but she takes Carson’s lead since she’s the gift giver.
“C’mon, Mrs. Montgomery,” she says. “Don’t you want something that doesn’t scream ‘Talbots’ for a change?”
What’s wrong with Talbots? Ray wonders.
She turns back to the three-way mirror. She suspects that she looks a little like a gypsy past her prime, but she hopes that there is some style to this getup that she can’t quite discern. Some message that says “a young and vibrant fifty-five.” That’s the problem when you’re my age—when you try something trendy, it’s hard to gauge if you look absurd or admiringly fresh.
As Ray picks up the price tag, she nearly falls over. The skirt alone is $260.00, and the top is $145.00. Who knows what the necklace costs?
“Don’t look at that,” Carson says, gently pulling the tag out of Ray’s hand. “It’s great on you. And William and I want to get you something nice.”
So Ray has nothing to do but trust her daughter-in-law’s chic sensibilities, and before she’s buttoned her jacket Carson has charged the whole thing to her platinum card. The sales lady hangs the get-up and drapes it with a silver plastic bag that shimmers in the sunlight as they walk across King Street to the parking garage.
Then they head back to Jasper and over to Sylvia Crenshaw’s beauty salon to get Ray’s hair done. Ray doesn’t care what Hilda says—she is not paying a hundred dollars in Charleston every time she needs a new do just to avoid Trudi Crenshaw. And as soon as she gets the nerve, she’s calling to cancel her next appointment with Dr. Arhundati and head back to Angus for her menopausal medical needs. Hormone replacement therapy, here I come! she thinks. Oh, I can’t wait!
“Wanna get a manicure?” Ray says to Carson, who turns her nose up at the outdated Ladies’ Home Journal magazines on Sylvia’s coffee table. Trudi waves at Ray and motions Carson over.
“Okay,” Carson sighs. “Do you do French?” she asks Trudi.
“Yes ma’am.” Trudi repositions her hips in the pink round seat.
Ray nods and waves a thank-you to her, and she smiles back as if to say, “This town is too small to be enemies.”
Ray is relieved to be back in the care of someone who understands her hair and knows how to make it do. “I’ve missed you, Sylvia.”
“Me too.” Sylvia fusses with Ray’s bangs. “Fill me in on everything. I hear Priscilla has a new man who’s a friend of Little Hilda’s.”
“That’s right.” Ray is thankful to be able to gush about how Priscilla and Donovan have been seeing each other quite regularly these last few months since Little Hilda’s wedding. “I can’t help but keep my fingers crossed about it.”
Then she thinks of her last conversation with Pris a few days ago. Poop 2—that daredevil, J.K. Neely—has not liked her relationship with Donovan one bit, and he keeps calling her and writing her these mournful love letters that describe in graphic detail how strongly his heart aches for her.
“Don’t respond, Pris,” Ray said to her the other day when she called to read her one.
“I won’t, Mama,” she said. “But you have to admit, his letters are sort of sweet in a bizarre kind of way.”
“Bizarre is not what you want for a lifetime,” Ray said to her.
“I know,” she said. “Well, Donovan is picking me up for a pops concert on the Mall, so I better get ready.”
“Have fun!” Ray said, trying to keep a lid on her excitement.
“Oh, I hope this one works out, Sylvia,” she says as Sylvia pumps her foot at the base of the chair and lifts Ray up.
“Sounds like it will,” she says. “And if it does, you know I want an invite to the best wedding Jasper will ever feast their eyes on.”
It will be grand, Ray thinks as she stares back at herself in the mirror while Sylvia works her hair with a comb. She can almost smell the gardenias in Priscilla’s bouquet and pinned across the lapel of Donovan’s white jacket. If she has her way, it will be a May wedding. Lord, let it be, she says as her heart pounds around her chest like a trapped bird. Please, oh please, let this one turn out the way I want it to.
“So what would you like for your birthday?” Sylvia asks Ray as she takes a hunk of hair from the back of her head and clamps it with a hot pink clip. She picks at the strands beneath it and adds, “Other than Priscilla to marry that nice young buck?”
“Oh, I don’t need a thing,” Ray says.
Then Sylvia leans in with a concerned look and whispers in Ray’s ear, “Honey, you’ve got a few spots back here. Did you know about that?”
Ray’s eyes open wide and she examines herself in the mirror. “What do you mean?”
“A few bald spots.” Sylvia discreetly holds up a hand mirror and shows Ray the two bare places in the back of her head. Her scalp looks as pale as can be with all of that black hair around it.
Ray shakes her head in disbelief. “Put that away,” she says to Sylvia, who puts it down immediately and begins resuming the cut.
Ray feels the familiar flash of heat coming on. This one starts in the top of her head where Sylvia is tugging and clipping, and it works its way down to the pit of her stomach. How could she have missed this?
“Need some water?” Sylvia says.
Ray nods her head.
Sylvia pulls a water bottle out of the fridge near her station and when she hands it to Ray she whispers, “It’s perfectly normal at our age.” Then she nods toward the manicure station and says, “My sister Trudi has them, and so did our daddy. It tends to run in the family. Was your daddy bald?”
“Oh,” Ray says. “He died when I was very young, so I don’t know.”
“Well,” Sylvia says as she teases a large clump of hair on top and says, “It’s easy to cover up for now with the rest of your hair and a little hairspray, but I can find out what Trudi does about hers. She takes some kind of women’s Rogaine or something. I’ll let you know next week.”
“Thank you, Sylvia,” Ray says. She puts her fingers up to the back of her head and feels her scalp. Sylvia pulls Ray’s hand gently away and says, “Don’t give it another thought. I’ll cover it up good for tonight.”
This menopause is a nightmare, Ray thinks. She’s got hair popping up in places she doesn’t want it to, and she’s losing it in places she desperately needs it. It’s like her body is against her. Snuffing out her womanhood before she has time to blink.
With a new hairdo and a fresh manicure, Ray and Carson race home. Ray changes into her new outfit, comes down the stairs, and vamps for her boys. “Here it is.”
The outfit is so unlike her, but Cousin Willy never seems to have an opinion about clothes and he says in earnest, “It’s nice. Real nice.”
“And different,” Justin adds. “All that brown and orange reminds me of camouflage.”
Ray smiles and shakes her head. “Camouflage? Is hunting all you ever think about?”
“Nope,” he says as Cousin Willy hands him a stick of summer sausage to slice. “I think about fishing too.”
She flaps her hands at them.
“You’ve got to come fishing with us sometime, Ray,” Cousin Willy says. “We’ll blindfold you on the way, of course.”
Justin laughs. Ray doesn’t know if Willy is kidding or not, and she can tell by the funny way Justin is tilting his head that he doesn’t know either.
Miss C. is in the backyard greeting everyone with a cone-shaped birthday hat and several birthday blowers in her concrete basket. She looks like a beauty pageant contestant with a red sash tied across one shoulder and down to the opposite hip that reads, “Ray’s Big Day!”
“Hey, hey!” Kitty B. says as she and LeMar come through the back deck and set the birthday cake on the counter. She’s made Ray’s favorite—her seven-layer coconut cake—and she’s also made a peanut butter pie and a bowl of banana pudding.
“Good gracious, Kitty B.,” Cousin Willy says. “That all looks so good!”
LeMar nods and pats his head with a handkerchief.
“How are you feeling?” Ray asks him.
“Not too bad,” he says as he shakes Willy’s and Justin’s hands.
Kitty B. whispers to Ray, “The MRI was clear again. Surprise, surprise.”
Then Sis comes right through the kitchen door with her seven-layer dip and chips. “Great outfit, Ray.”
Ray spins around for the gals. “Can I can pull it off?”
“Uh-huh,” Kitty B. says. “Where did you get it?”
“Carson got it for me today in Charleston,” she says, and just then her son and daughter-in-law come down the stairs and into the kitchen looking like the most handsome couple you ever saw.
William sports olive pants and a white oxford shirt with his initials on the chest pocket, and Carson is in fancy blue jeans and a silky brown poncho with lots of tassels. She’s got on these pointed high heels that will sink right into the soft ground as soon as she steps foot in the backyard. Now Ray envisions Carson with her heel stuck in the mud in the barbeque buffet line. She hopes she won’t sprain her ankle, but she doesn’t feel like it’s her place to tell her to change shoes.
“Well, who do we have here?” Kitty B. says as she runs to embrace them.
“Don’t y’all look wonderful,” Sis says, following behind her.
“Indeed,” LeMar says, putting his hanky back in his pocket and shaking William’s hand.
Cousin Willy leads everyone through the deck and into the backyard to the beverage table, where he’s got cans of beer in barrels and cups of iced tea so sweet it will curl your hair.
When the pack is outside chatting, Rev. Capers shows up with a nice bottle of wine. Willy has hired his favorite bluegrass band, Three-Legged Pig, from Columbia and they’ve set up on a little stage he built by the edge of the creek. Kitty B. has brought her dogs, and Justin lets Tuxedo out, and they sniff around the yard together. Then Trudi and Angus show up, and Sylvia and her boyfriend Bubber, and R.L. and Mayor Whaley and Opal Dowdy and Cricket and Tommy and the rest of the friends and family on the list.
When everyone’s gathered together and they’re just finishing the blessing, Cousin Willy squeezes her hand. “Will you looky here, Ray?” He nods in the direction of the driveway, where Priscilla and Donovan smile at her behind the white picket fence.
Priscilla waves both arms over her head. “Hi, Mama!”
“Oh, what a surprise!” Ray grabs her cheeks and runs toward them. “When did you get here, sweetheart?”
Priscilla kisses Ray on the cheek, grabs the tips of her elbows. “We just flew in.”
Ray squeezes her daughter tightly and then pats Donovan on the back. “Well, come on in, come on in and get yourself a beer.”
“Mama, you look fabulous,” Priscilla says as Cousin Willy comes over and hugs her tight before giving Donovan a firm handshake.
“Happy birthday, Mrs. Montgomery,” Donovan says. His cheeks are rosy and he’s just adorable. He’s so tailored and clean-cut that it’s hard for Ray to imagine he’s a Democrat. Anyway, he is just precious in his barn jacket and khaki pants and penny loafers. He’s got this short hair parted on the side and these big green eyes with long dark lashes and furry eyebrows.
“Howdy, Sis,” William says with Carson standing right behind him.
“One afternoon back in Jasper, and he’s already talking like a country boy,” Carson jokes. “Better look out, Donovan.”
William gives his sister a tight squeeze and says, “Let’s dance,” and Ray watches as he leads her out to the dance floor and spins her around to the twang of the banjo.
Maybe this trip back home will rekindle William’s love for the place where he grew up. Where the air is clear and the light is bright. Where southern hospitality thrives and folks pour all they’ve got into their social occasions, even such an inconsequential one as her turning fifty-five. It will be such a shame if neither of her children ever moves back home. Makes her wonder if she ever should have sent them off to those fancy, overpriced out-of-state colleges in the first place.
After everyone eats, LeMar takes the microphone from the band and sings “Happy Birthday” to Ray. Then Kitty B. brings out the coconut cake with sparkler candles. After Ray opens what she assumes is the last present, Willy brings out a huge box wrapped in coral and pink stripes with a big white bow.
The band stops and everyone gathers around as Ray gently tears open the paper. At the edge of the box she sees the gray and pointed tip of an antler, and she shrieks and jumps into Justin’s arms. Willy opens it the rest of the way, and Ray sees it is the enormous head of a buck mounted on a white-striped wooden panel with a little plaque below his head.
First Deer of the Season Ray Jones Montgomery August 15, 2005
Ray doesn’t know whether to scowl or weep, though everyone around her claps and cheers.
“Thought we could put it up at the beach house,” Willy says.
“Mmm,” Ray says. “We’ll see about that.”
“You won it fair and square, Aunt Ray,” Justin says. “You got the first one of the season with the grill of your pretty green car.”
Ray laughs as the band starts back up and the guests begin to dance again.
Now no outdoor party is complete—at least in the men’s eyes—without some sort of fire that everyone sits around. So Willy and Justin light a small bonfire that they built earlier in the day. Ray and the gals sit around it in the lawn furniture and start telling old stories about the watermelons and the dances and jumping off the old Macon Bridge into the Edisto River.
Capers sits by Sis and chats awhile with her, and just when Kitty B. offers to give her a lift home, he says, “I’ll walk you home, Sis.”
Sis’s eyes glisten in the fire. “Okay,” she says.
“All right.” Kitty B. tries to keep her cool as Rhetta nips at her ankle. “That’s a fine idea!”
As the folks Ray’s age begin to say their good-byes, Carson and William amble out on the dock with Donovan and Priscilla, where Justin has set up the Chiminea and started their own fire. Cricket and Tommy join them, and so do Marshall and Katie Rae.
Like grade school children, they move their flashlights around the creek in search of the alligator. The boys chuckle and the girls shriek with fear and delight as the light hits an old stump on the edge of the marsh. Ray loves the sound of their banter as it wafts over the creek and back toward the house.
That night as Ray turns on the television and waits for Cousin Willy to give her a turn in the bathroom, she comes across J.K. Neely on the television as she flips through the channels.
“Look!” she calls to Willy. “It’s Poop 2!”
Willy peers around the corner with the toothbrush in his mouth.
“Same old imbecile,” he says, and they both watch Poop 2 climb up in some kind of enormous slingshot where he will be pulled back and launched over some muddy lake in Tennessee.
They gawk at him as his cohorts snap the sling and his body is hurled out over the water. He flails his arms and legs in midair for several seconds until he does a belly flop into the lake. Ray is thankful, oh so thankful, that he is launched out of Priscilla’s life for good.
Now she pictures the gardenias whose buds are just beginning to form secretly behind the shed as she peers out of the bedroom window and listens to her children chuckling around the bonfires with their significant others. She thinks of Capers walking Sis on home, and she hopes Vangie Dreggs tootled by in her golf cart earlier in the evening as the sound of the bluegrass band and the rising voices surely sent her the message.
There’s not a thing in this world that could ruin this moment for Ray. Not a hot flash, not a trip to Dr. Arhundati, not even the fact that her hair is falling out in clumps or that her children live too far away with no plans to return. Sometimes she worries that time is passing by faster than she ever thought it would. Other times she fears she’ll wake up one day only to realize she is older and weaker than she ever imagined. Or that her friends will finally see her for the farce she is—a bastard girl, the daughter of a housekeeper, who has no right to be the First Lady of Jasper. But she shoves all of that to the side for tonight. It’s a celebration, after all. It’s her moment to revel, and she knows she would be a fool not to savor it.
Ray tiptoes to the bathroom and puts her arms around Willy’s hips as he swooshes mouthwash around in his puffed cheeks.
“Thank you,” she says as she squeezes him tight. “Thank you for a wonderful birthday.”
She rests her chin on his soft, bare shoulder and gives him that knowing look in the bathroom mirror. He wipes his mouth and turns to face her, and she leads him to the bed where she turns off the lights, and they quietly make love as the moonlight glistens on Round-O Creek and their grown children talk and laugh around the fire on the dock in their backyard.
The next day, after Ray feeds the kids a hearty breakfast and gets them headed on their way back home, she goes over her notes for a wedding session with the gals that Sis will host in her apartment this afternoon. Time is ticking on Katie Rae and Marshall’s wedding, and there is a lot that needs to be pulled together in the next week—namely the ordering of the invitations and the guest list—if they are ever going to make it.
When the doorbell rings, she thinks it’s probably no one as usual. These days the testy thing is activated by almost any large truck barreling down the road. Willy has got to fix it! It rings twice more before she realizes someone must really be at the door.
“Hi, Ray,” Vangie Dreggs says. She stands there all polished and painted in a white fur vest and cream wool pants, her big white horse teeth grinning. Little Bit is sniffing around Ray’s topiary, and Vangie shakes a big box wrapped in shiny silver paper that says “Happy Birthday” across it.
“Hello, Vangie.” Ray is shocked at the sight of her.
“Well, I just wanted to drop a little something off for you.”
“Thank you,” Ray says. She doesn’t want to ask her in, but Vangie just stands there, smiling and shifting her weight from side to side, and Ray doesn’t see how she can avoid it.
“Can’t you come in for a cup of coffee on the piazza?” she says. “I’d love to,” Vangie says. “I hope the party was a grand success.” She picks Little Bit up and follows Ray through the dining room to the kitchen. “I’ll just put him in the backyard.”
“Good,” Ray says, and she pours her a cup of coffee.
Little Bit barks all around the yard nipping at Tuxedo’s tail in an effort to rouse him as Vangie sits on the porch sipping coffee and asking Ray in detail about the party: who was there, what were the presents, how were the kids, wasn’t she surprised. How does she know so much? The gall! This woman is a scandal. She can somehow break every rule in the etiquette book and continue on in life. It’s obscene.
Ray studies Vangie, her painted lips and her perfectly fixed white hair.
“Now, look, Ray, I want to ask your help with something.”
“Oh,” Ray says. “What is it?”
“I want you to help me coordinate the Healing Prayer Revival Day. It’s going to bless the socks off the community the way it did for me in Houston when I first attended one. It literally changed my whole outlook on life.” Vangie claps her hand gently. “Now you are one of the most influential people in town, First Lady, and I think that if you participate, others will follow suit.”
What a piece of work. Bringing me a guilt-ridden birthday gift and then goading me into her wacky revival day. Well, Ray’s not going to be painted into this corner.
As she opens her mouth to refuse the request, she hears a splash and a yelp and a thwomp.
“Little Bit!” Vangie races to the edge of the deck where she sees that a good-sized alligator has her Jack Russell’s hindquarter between his jaws. As the gator starts to spin, Vangie runs out into the yard and down into the marsh where she sinks into the pluff mud.
“No!” she cries. “No!”
Cousin Willy comes running around from the driveway. He must have just gotten back from the airport. He bolts in the water and swims toward the gator as Little Bit makes one more yelp before the gator dunks him under. Justin runs out of the shed with a rope that he throws to Willy, who knots it and leaps toward the bubbles coming up from the center of the creek.
A few yards away Ray spots the gator’s tail swishing fast on the way toward the other side of the bank. He’s gotten away with Little Bit in his jowls, and he doesn’t resurface until an hour later when his eyes pop up near the marsh on the opposite bank as Ray and Willy console Vangie Dreggs, who weeps hysterically on the edge of the creek, pulling at her helmet of hair and rocking her head back and forth in disbelief.
“I’m so sorry,” Willy says as he pats her back with his wet hands.
“We really are,” Ray hears herself say.
Vangie turns to Ray and looks at her inquisitively; then she throws herself into Ray’s arms and hugs her tighter than she’s ever been hugged before, her large head resting in the crook of Ray’s neck as the new turquoise necklace from Carson digs into her collar bone. “I know y’all are, Ray,” she says. “I know y’all are.”