Now, daydreaming about how I can use all these wedding stories circulating around Mooreville to gain my end (I don’t have to repeat myself. You already know what that is), I’m settling in for the rest of the ride when Callie’s cell phone rings.
I know after the first hellos who’s on the other end of the line. Listen, I may not be the dog who brings in the Best of Show trophy, but I’m the one whose mismatched ears can hear both ends of a telephone conversation.
“Callie,” Ruby Nell says, “Fayrene and I are having an argument.”
What’s new, Callie mutters, but that’s not that she says to her Mama.
“I’m sorry. But you two will settle it. You always do.”
“I called so you could settle it.”
“Holy cow, Mama. I’ve given two perms and done four colors today. I don’t want to turn back around just so I can mediate a little disagreement that you two are perfectly capable of handling. I want to get home and have a cup of hot chocolate.”
Callie knows logic won’t deter Ruby Nell, but she always tries.
“Fayrene says Jack proposed to you up at Gas, Grits and Guts during a flea market in the parking lot, but I know good and well he did no such thing.”
“No, he did not, Mama.”
“I told her so, but she wouldn’t listen. Jack proposed on my front porch. “
“No, he didn’t, Mama.”
“I distinctly remember that he hired a band.”
“He hired a man to play the guitar while he played the harmonica. But that was at Lovie’s birthday party. And it was after we were married.”
“Well, I could have sworn there was music at the proposal.”
“There was, Mama.”
“See. I knew it.”
“But it didn’t happen on your porch.”
“Don’t tell Fayrene.”
This comes over the phone as a whisper. I can just picture Ruby Nell turning her back and cupping the cell phone so Fayrene won’t hear. And she’s probably right. Fayrene’s getting hard of hearing. For that matter, so is Ruby Nell.
It’s a good thing they have me around for their golden years. These royal ears never miss a trick.
Sometimes when I’m moping around about getting sent back in a dog suit, I think about the way humans age – loss of hearing, teeth, hair and bladder control. It’s no wonder I got sent back as a basset. The King of Rock ‘n’ Roll never had to go through those indignities in his other life, and now I won’t have to go through them in this one.
Age just makes dogs more noble. Sure we might lose a little hearing, but we’ve got so much in the first place, we’ll never miss it.
“I won’t tell her,” Callie tells Ruby Nell, then she shuts her off her cell phone and reaches to scratch my ears.
I can feel my human mom’s relief. With Jack waiting at the house, Callie’s in no mood to go into details of his long-ago proposal.
That’s all right with me, Mama.
It’s more fun coming from Jack’s point of view anyhow. All I have to is shut my eyes and I can recall every word of the story exactly as he told it to me.
o0o
Jack
I knew the first time I kissed her I was a goner. Even if she had let me haul her off to a motel, I couldn’t have gotten her out of my system. That woman might as well have been boxed up and presented to me with a gift card that said Jack Jones.
And so I did what any man in my position would do. I figured out how much time I had to woo her and win her. I even figured in the time I had for a honeymoon and where I’d take her before I ever popped the question. I had four weeks till I was back on the job and I didn’t intend to leave Mooreville, Mississippi, till Callie Valentine was mine.
Before all that, though, I went to see Charlie. I’m not a cad. I know a man in my position has no business with a woman, not of the permanent sort, anyhow. If Charlie Valentine said no, I’d take the nearest road out of town.
“Charlie,” I said to him over coffee in his apartment over the funeral home – Eternal Rest. Thank God there were no bodies downstairs. I see enough bodies in my work. I didn’t cotton to the idea of asking for a woman’s hand in marriage while the dead lay waiting for a decent burial. “I want to marry your niece.”
“Do you love her?”
“Yes.”
“Nothing would make me happier.”
Charlie’s position took me by surprise. He knows the dangers as well as I do. He knows that I would have to keep secrets from Callie. I couldn’t tell her where I was going or what I was doing. I couldn’t even tell her when I would come back. Fact is, every time I leave, I don’t know if I’ll come back alive or in a body bag.
“You’re not going to try to talk me out of it?”
“Why should I?”
“A Company man shouldn’t have a wife.”
“Why not? I did.”
“I’m not family material.”
Charlie knows this as well as I do. I grew up in an orphanage. Several as a matter of fact. I was such a troublemaker, I got sent from one to the other till I finally got old enough to go out and find trouble all on my own. When people ask my family history, I invent one. It makes them feel more comfortable if I say I grew up with two parents in a normal household.
Charlie clapped me on the shoulder. “You’re as much a son to me as if you were my own. And if ever there was a woman with the strength of character to be the wife of a Company man, it’s my niece.”
“You’re giving me your blessing?”
“Yes. And telling you to hustle before you get sent to the other side of the world.”
“You know where I’m going next?”
“I’ve heard rumors.”
I didn’t ask. Didn’t want to know. It’s always best to go out to fight the bad guys on an adrenaline high.
I left Charlie with the promise that I would never break Callie’s heart. Then I set out to propose to the woman in a way that made it impossible for her to say no.
Callie’s cautious. Where Lovie would have jumped at the chance to be spontaneous, Callie was going to say she needed at least six months to get to know me and another year and half to get ready for a wedding.
In two years, I could be dead. That’s exaggerating a bit, but not much. Men all over the world have tried to take me out, but they’ll have to up their game if they intend to catch the Black Panther. A code name I earned because I have the knack of blending into the darkness so well I’m invisible.
Besides all that, the jackals were closing in.
Don’t think I hadn’t seen Laura Swenson stalking Cal and me. Impossible to miss all that dyed blond hair, the forty-inch rack, the fake accent. We’d had a brief fling a couple of years back, down in New Orleans at the Mardi Gras, and Laura had made some rash statement about never letting me go. I hadn’t believed her then, but she had a nasty habit of turning up every time I take a vacation. Made me wonder if her accent is fake, after all.
The brunette was a Company operative whose interest in me got a little too personal on a job we did last year in Mexico City.
Who the Sumo wrestler-looking dude was, I didn’t have as clue. But I intended to find out. After I proposed to Callie.
It took some fast talking and a few bribes, but I pulled it all together in two days. Then I set out to win my woman.
She was wearing that pretty yellow sundress that I like so much and matching yellow shoes. Callie’s a shoe hound. I found that out right away. While an obsession with footwear would look silly on most women, on Cal it looked cute.
I had told her we were going on a picnic. When I picked her up at the door, she had a basket all packed that smelled like Heaven. And so did she.
“Something smells good.”
“Lovie fried chicken for us. And made fried apple pies. I made the potato salad.”
I grabbed the basket and escorted her out the door. I didn’t dare kiss her. If I started, I wouldn’t stop. In spite of what my enemies say, I’m only human. I had never had to wait this long for a woman. Don’t get me wrong. That’s not the reason I wanted to marry her. I loved her. Love her still.
There’s not a manipulative bone in her body. She wasn’t playing hard to get. Callie Valentine was just being herself. And she had no idea the power she had over me.
But my time in Mooreville was running out. And once I made up my mind, nothing could slow me, sidetrack me, bamboozle me or deter me.
I had timed it just right. I drove the silver Jag to an overlook on the Natchez Trace Parkway. It’s a beautiful, bucolic setting, federally protected and maintained, limited access, 50-mile-an-hour speed limit, very little traffic and very many unimpeded views of the sunset.
It was quiet when we got there. Nothing out of the ordinary to give away my plans. Just a grassy hillside, a perfect breeze, and the evening sun turning the sky, the farmland beyond, and even a few cows pink and gold.
We spread a quilt then sat cross legged eating the best fried chicken I’d ever put in my mouth and a passable potato salad. This wasn’t the first time I’d found out the woman of my dreams was no cook. Which was fine by me. I could live on hot dogs for weeks at a time. And have.
We ate the fried chicken and started on the pies. The sky had gone from rainbow colored to a deep shade of purple when three cars pulled up. Right on time.
“Oh, dear.” I loved that Cal was disappointed to have company. I loved the way she hid her disappointment and smiled at them when the four guys walked up. “You just missed the sunset,” she said.
“That’s all right, ma’am,” the tallest one said. Hank Gruber, leader of band he called the Black-eyed Peas and Ham. Nothing makes sense anymore. Whatever happened to names like The Beatles?
Three of them pulled guitars and harmonicas out of cases, and the fourth pulled out fireworks.
With the sky lit up by sparkling hearts and showers of stars, with the strings and mouth harp playing romantic ballads, I got down on my knees and offered up a marquis cut diamond ring.
“Will you marry me, Callie?”
My question was redundant. She’d already said, “Yes.” More than once if I recall. And with tears streaming down her cheeks.
While I had the advantage, I did the smart thing and pressed for a quick wedding. I had to tell another lie to get it to happen, but it was all for a good cause.
The lie? I told her that my parents would be flying over from Paris, and it seemed a foolish waste not to go ahead and get married while they were here.
o0o
Now before you start getting your nose all out of joint about Jack telling his little fib, put yourself in his shoes. He was right about Cal. She’s not spontaneous. She’s a planner, a perfectionist. She’d have wanted a two year-wait. And he didn’t have the luxury of time.
You’d have to know Jack the way I do to understand why he made up a family in Paris. He’d as soon cut off his right hand as have anybody feel sorry for him, especially Callie. He wanted his future wife to view him as normal.
Of course, he couldn’t jeopardize her safety by telling her about his job. If you work for somebody like The Company or the CIA, you can’t go around blurting out, “Honey, I’ve got to fly halfway around the world and go undercover where I could get shot at, captured, tortured and possibly killed. If the bad guys come to the door looking for me, act like you don’t know me.”
He told her he was an international businessman.
He told her the truth about his family soon enough. And she laughed about it.
It wasn’t till years later that she accidentally learned his true profession.