A Wedding Invitation (15 page)

The next morning I head out for a walk, wishing Natasha were here to join me. The stress building in my head releases, and after walking ten blocks through the neighborhood and having a dozen homeowners either wave at me or wish me good morning, I’m convinced that it isn’t hard to make friends here and eventually know everyone.

By a brick house on the corner, children play a game of croquet. Their mallets slice across the manicured lawn at the colored balls. The squeals and clapping bring smiles to parents seated on plastic chairs on a nearby patio.

An hour later I’m ready to go back to my aunt’s. I’m perspiring and eager to get into the shower.

After my shower, I stand by the bed in the basement, a towel around me, and look at what I have to wear. My choices are limited to the packing decision I made yesterday. There’s a jeans skirt, the purple cotton shirt I wore on my date with Taylor, a green shirt, a pair of jeans with holes at the knees (Mom is never impressed when I wear them), a pair of khaki shorts, and three cotton T-shirts all in varying shades of pink. If I’d known that I was going to see Carson, I’d have brought my sundress with the Thai print. I like the way it shows off my shoulders and is pleated at the waist.

“You are going to have fun,” I tell my reflection in the bathroom. I smile—one of those smiles I often see at the boutique from a customer when she tries on a scarf or hat, strikes a pose, and thinks that no one is watching. I wonder if the jeans skirt and green shirt were the right choices and wish I was wearing the sundress. Mom tells me I look good in green, which brings out my olive complexion and brown eyes.

As I continue to hide out in the bathroom, I wonder if Carson will even show up. He’s from Raleigh. He could have plans to go home for the holiday.

I frown at my reflection.
You sack of hay
, I almost say aloud.
You could be worrying for nothing
. I smooth my hair, then fluff it up around my temples. I hope that the tension in my neck will ease.

Leave it to Beanie to find me. “What are you doing down here?” she asks, knocking on the bathroom door.

“Busy,” I say.

“Well, come on out and quit your foolishness.”

I press my nose to the door. “I’m not being foolish.”

“Come on out now.”

“Why?” With my eyes on the stained ceiling, I wonder why this bathroom has to reek so heavily of Pine-Sol. With the amount she uses to clean, I think Dovie must have stock in the company. Closing my eyes, I try not to breathe.

“You are needed upstairs.”

“Now?” Could Carson already be here?

“Hurry.”

“I’m busy,” I say and wince at my own deceit.

Beanie tries a soothing tone. “Come on, sugar, you can’t miss out just ’cause you’re nervous.”

I turn around and swing open the door. “I am not nervous.”

She eyes me, her small hands against her hips, a stance I’ve never seen her hold. “Sure you are.”

“I am fine.” I enunciate each word like I did when teaching English as a Second Language.

“Well, I would be if I were you.”

I square my shoulders and walk toward the staircase.

“You can’t hide from life. Even I know that.”

I want to say so much—but not to Beanie. I want sympathy, not reprimand.

She follows me like the conscience I can’t get rid of.

I march up the steps, almost run into Milkweed, and abruptly stop as I come face-to-face with the past standing before me—just as handsome and inviting as he was way back then.

“Sam.” Carson’s deep voice takes me back to the camp, during the early mornings when he’d stop by to wake me for a walk to the market.

“Carson, how nice to see you!” I say a little too enthusiastically. My smile is pasted on my face, unable to come off even if I wanted it to. I know it’s not wise, but nevertheless I look into his eyes—eyes greener than I remembered. My ears feel like they’ve been stuffed with cotton; it’s hard to hear when your heart bangs against your rib cage like a noisy hammer. At last I find my voice. “Who would have thought we’d both meet again in North Carolina?”

He hugs me then, all warm and smelling of a fresh spring day.

Dovie tells us to make ourselves comfortable on the porch, where Pearl sits with a ball of rust-colored yarn and her crochet needle. My aunt and Beanie carry plates of food in from the kitchen.

I motion to a wicker chair to the left of the love seat. Carson sits down as I slip onto the love seat beside Pearl.

I introduce Carson, and when I say his name, Pearl puts her yarn and needle aside and tells him that she had a brother named Carson. As the two make small talk, I place my attention on the ceiling fan, the floor, anything but Carson’s beautiful eyes. When there’s a break in the conversation, I ask what he’s been up to, and as he shares about a local Moravian man who makes the best cheese soufflé, I think that I must have missed something. “Do you know this man?” I ask.

He grins. “Like I said, he’s my neighbor and works in Old Salem. You know Old Salem, right?”

“Of course,” I say too quickly. I’ve only visited the famous Moravian section of Winston once as a child and don’t remember much about it except people wore old-fashioned clothing and talked in a funny dialect.

“My neighbor is taking part in a soufflé contest today.”

Carson continues to talk as I realize all I’ve been concentrating on is my breathing and making sure that I’m poised and looking relaxed. But I’m not relaxed because Carson is looking me over; I know he must be because he hasn’t seen me since 1986, seven years ago. I would like to look him over, but my gaze is glued to the right of me, on Pearl. Pearl’s worn eyes are safe to look at; this old woman will not coax my heart from its safe place.

The ceiling fan creaks as Pearl says, “I’ve never made a soufflé, but I do like to make a rhubarb pie every Sunday.” With a chuckle she looks around the room and adds, “Sometimes I forget family tradition and make pies on other days of the week, too.”

I can’t recall the last time I had rhubarb. I know that Pearl’s pies will be served for dessert tonight, along with the cake Dovie iced.

“The family recipe uses half a cup of white and half a cup of brown.” She giggles as though she has told a funny joke.

“My mother always made rhubarb pies in the summer.”

“I hated rhubarb when I was a child,” Pearl confesses. “I think it’s because it reminded me of celery, and I don’t like celery.”

I wonder if I’ve left earth and am now hovering around the twilight zone. This is ridiculous. Who doesn’t like celery?

Carson smiles at me. “Sam, remember the time you and I made a pie for one of our potluck dorm dinners?”

I do remember that time. “It was an
ube
pie.”

Carson explains the purple vegetable to Pearl as the older woman listens intently.

“A purple yam,” repeats Pearl. “Sounds colorful. Now what is it called again?”

“Ube,” Carson says. Then he jovially asks, “Sam, have you made any fried onions and green peppers lately?”

My first reaction is to laugh, and I do. “I don’t have that skillet, so you know, without it, I can’t cook.” I see the skillet in my mind—it was a heavy object that once caught fire when I left it on a burner without any oil. I know Carson is remembering that scene because he was there to put out the fire with a bucket of tap water.

“Do you ever hear from anyone?” Carson leans closer toward me.

“From PRPC days? I get a letter from Brice about once a year. Christmas card, actually.”

“I get those. I can’t believe he’s married with four kids and still living in the Philippines.”

Once I got letters from you, I want to say. Then you stopped writing to me. I almost feel bold enough to ask him, What happened? But I just smile until my face feels like it might crack like dried Play-Doh.

When Beanie returns to the gathering from the kitchen, we stop talking to hear her tell us, “Wash up now because dinner is nearly ready.” The aroma of food is enticing, although my stomach is tighter than Pearl’s ball of yarn.

Carson and I head to the little bathroom by the front door as Pearl joins us, her orthopedic shoes heavy against the wooden floor. We let her go first and stand by the opened door as she insists that we use the decorative soaps in the glass canister beside the sink.

“I never knew why people buy these pretty things only to display them and never wash with them,” she tells us as she pulls out a peach-colored ball in the shape of a seashell. As the water runs, she lathers with the soap ball. She rinses, dries her hands on the red, white, and blue guest towel that displays an embroidered American flag, and says, “I believe in enjoying life, I guess.”

Carson and I smile discreetly at each other, and taking her advice, wash our hands with the pretty soap. Then we leave the fragrant room for the porch, where dinner is served under the wobbly ceiling fan.

Carson is the epitome of good-natured. His memory must be shorter than I realized, forgetting the distance that was once between us. “Sam, it’s good to see you.”

I swallow the desire to be sarcastic. How easy it would be for me to blurt out something about how he refused my advances one night after we watched a video together. How he wanted nothing to do with me for some time after that and how embarrassed I felt. How we disagreed over Lien’s accusation of theft. How he avoided me.

When Dovie appears, we seat ourselves at the table, noting the aromatic spread that lay before us. There is a plate with stuffed eggs, another with watermelon, grapes, and melon slices, and a platter stacked with grilled pork chops. A green salad filled with Boston and romaine lettuce, cucumbers, dried cranberries, tomatoes, and slivered almonds is to the left of my elbow, and in front of Carson are trays of twice-baked potatoes and homemade oatmeal bread. An inviting dome of whipped butter sits in a ceramic dish.

Dovie asks us all to hold hands around the table, and then she says her usual prayer of thanksgiving. Once she says her “Amen and amen,” we lift our heads and start passing platters of food.

I spoon small portions onto my plate and hope that no one comments on how little I’ve taken. As I cut my pork chop, I also hope that no one notices my shaking hand.

Beanie asks Carson about the radio station where he works, and after he’s told us about that, I jump in to ask the question I’ve wanted to hear the answer to. “How do you all know each other?”

They look around and exchange sly smiles.

“I needed bail money and your aunt helped me out.” Carson says this like it’s a joke, but knowing how many people my aunt helps, it could be the truth.

“Really?” I scan their faces and realize Carson is kidding. “Tell me the truth now.”

“It was at the soup kitchen,” says my aunt. “Last December, wasn’t it? His radio station was raising money for the kitchen, some sort of fund-raiser.” She lifts a forkful of potato and eats.

“And he interviewed you,” Beanie adds.

“That’s right. I said something about being proud to give of my time.” She looks at us and shrugs. “Something pretty lame.”

“Oh, no!” cries Beanie. “You did just great. I was . . .” Her eyes focus on her hands. “I was proud of you.”

I look closely to see that her eyes are moist. She blinks, looks back at her hands.

I want to reach across the table and say, “There now, Beanie. You can be sentimental after all.”

Carson looks my way. “Then last week, I learned that Dovie is Sam’s aunt.”

“That’s when I got the notion to invite Carson over for dinner with y’all tonight.” My aunt is proud she could pull off this meeting, I can tell. Her face is radiant with the satisfaction of a well-kept secret. “I knew Sam would be coming here for the Fourth.”

Dovie knows I’ll always make my way down South when she asks; her home is like a respite from a weary world.

“I was the one who was listening to the radio station when Carson was announcing a song, remember that?” Beanie says. “He said it reminded him of his days in the Philippines at a refugee camp. I called him right then. I knew that Sam spent a year there.”

“Same camp?” Pearl asks.

“Same camp,” says Carson, his smile directed at me.

“And was the song Madonna’s ‘Borderline’?” I say with a knowing grin, because it had to be either that or one of Michael Jackson’s.

Carson laughs. “It sure was.”

“Since you work at the station,” says Pearl, “could you have them play a song for us?”

“A song? Now?”

“I mean, this is quite a reunion we have here. You and Sam together again after all these years.” Beanie tosses me a sly smile that I try to ignore.

“We do need a song sung,” my aunt chimes in.

“Which one?” asks Carson as he sips his iced tea.

Beanie thinks aloud. “Now, we want something peppy, and yet not too loud.”

“How about an oldie?” Dovie’s eyes are bright. “I like lots of songs by Peter, Paul, and Mary.”

“I like Frank Sinatra,” Pearl informs us. Her smile is generous, exposing her tiny teeth. I wonder how she chews food with the miniature enamels. “Or is he too old for this group?”

“Everyone knows Sinatra,” says Carson, his words making Pearl beam.

“I met him once.” Pearl looks like she’s trying to recall just where that meeting took place.