The Reading Circle (6 page)

She put her beer down on the deck railing and it nearly fell off as it made contact with a protruding rusty nail head. Then she gave him an intense stare after rescuing the bottle quickly with an impressive acrobatic move. “Break my heart once, shame on you. Break it twice, shame on me.” She turned toward the lake and marveled at the way the dark water had dissolved the moon into thin, uneven shards of light dancing on the surface. “I let that pretty sight out there lead me out to sea once before,” she continued, pointing to the horizon. “I'm not about to up and do it again.”

Surprisingly, he appeared amused at her remarks. “I see I have my work cut out for me. But that's okay. You won't mind being courted again, will you?”

She returned his laughter, only louder. “No, not as long as you don't mind being rejected.”

“We'll see about that, Peri,” he told her, finishing off his beer in one great chug and rather unromantically stifling a belch. “We'll just see.”

 

For Maura Beth, Monday morning was not a day to rejoice. Unlike some people with a predictable work routine, she had never had any trouble getting her week started in her cramped little library office. She considered herself nothing if not a woman on a mission. But this Monday was different, and it showed on her face and even in the way she was moving about in a kind of slow motion. She just couldn't get it out of her head that Jeremy had exploded yesterday over something as relatively inconsequential as a book club read. That was nothing in the larger scheme of things. What kind of relationship could she expect with him over the long haul when things really got tough? The incident did not inspire confidence that he might actually be the man she had ordered up on page 25 of her LSU journal almost a decade ago. At the moment he did not resemble marriage material.

A few seconds later, Renette Posey popped her head in. “Nothing much going on out there at the circulation desk, so I thought I'd catch up with you a bit.”

Maura Beth managed a smile, but it faded quickly. “Nothing much going on in here, either, I'm afraid.”

Renette took a seat across from her superior, smiling genuinely. “Miz Mayhew, I've worked for you long enough now to know when something's wrong. You dragged yourself in here this morning, and I was wondering if I might help somehow. You know I'll keep anything you tell me in strictest confidence.”

Maura Beth made another weak attempt at holding up the corners of her mouth but couldn't stop her lips from trembling. “That's sweet of you, Renette.”

“Weren't you and Mr. McShay supposed to get together over the weekend? Did he not show up or something? Being stood up is the worst.”

Maura Beth decided she needed to confide in someone, since she hadn't had the chance to run anything past Periwinkle yet; and even though Renette was ten years younger and just out of high school, she knew she could trust her Monday, Wednesday, and Friday front desk clerk with the slightly edited details of her private life. “Oh, Jeremy showed up, all right,” she began. “It would have been better if he hadn't, though.” Then she recounted their surprisingly antagonistic exchange, complete with her own exaggerated hand gestures—right, left, up, and down—and finished with a long, calming intake and release of air.

“I wouldn't have seen that coming,” Renette said, her pretty young face creased with frown lines. “Mr. McShay was so professional when he brought down those three students from Nashville for the
To Kill a Mockingbird
review. He was so composed and made such intelligent comments. I wish I'd had a teacher like him 'cause I know I would've gotten better grades. Anyway, I was gonna tell you that my girlfriends and I have started reading
Forrest Gump
for the March meeting. We compare notes over the phone as we go along. We all like Forrest a lot as far as we've gotten, even though he doesn't speak good English and some of the things he says are downright hilarious. But I can think of a few boys I went to high school with who didn't sound too much better, and they weren't nearly as funny. That Mr. Groom sure has captured the South so far, and that little first-grade romance with Jenny is just as cute as it can be. I had my first crush at the age, too, and I've never forgotten it.”

Maura Beth held out both hands, palms up for emphasis. “Thank you! Those are the sort of comments I would have expected from Jeremy to get a review off to a good start. Instead, he just got completely bent out of shape about how football was stealing all his thunder, and I can't believe he said he wouldn't even come down. Really, now, how mature is that? I think I can remember fusses I had in junior high that were more reasonable than that.”

“No wonder you're so upset.”

They sat with everything for a while; then Maura Beth put the tips of her fingers together thoughtfully. “Well, he has to make the next move. I as much as told him so. I'm not saying he owes me an actual apology, but the Jeremy who showed up yesterday afternoon can take that show on the road.”

Renette grinned and leaned in with a wink. “That's the best thing about working for you, Miz Mayhew. You've got loaded book carts of spunk, and I keep telling myself that when I grow up, I wanna be just like you.”

M
iss Voncille had come to the conclusion that more drastic measures were in order. Locke's favorite dinner of pork tenderloin with mushrooms, sweet potato hash, and homemade biscuits, which she lovingly prepared for him whenever they spent the night at her Painter Street cottage, wasn't getting the job done by a long shot. So when they had finished off their dessert of bread pudding and coffee, she hauled her grade-school scrapbook out of the bedroom closet, rummaged through it extensively, and found just the image to move the object of her affection off dead center. Or at least she hoped it would. Merely reading
Forrest Gump
together for the upcoming March meeting of The Cherry Cola Book Club wasn't getting her where she wanted to be, either.

“Remember this foolishness?” she said to him, pointing to a faded black-and-white snapshot of what looked like a deserted elementary classroom. It was surrounded by other old photos of children on the seesaw, playing dodge ball and climbing on the jungle gym, many staring at the camera with their tongues sticking out for no other reason than they were seven, eight, or nine years old. It came with the territory.

“A bunch of children playing. So what?”

Her impatience was quite evident in her tone. “No, not those. Just the one I'm pointing to.”

They were seated on her long green living room sofa, flanked by a couple of her many potted palms, and still he could only manage a frown. “There's nobody in that picture.”

She briefly shifted the scrapbook, bringing it up closer to his face as if she expected him to inhale the enticing aroma of some delicious entrée. “You aren't looking close enough.”

He was squinting hard now, but to no avail. “It's just a bunch of desks somewhere, Voncille. I have no idea what it is you expect me to see.”

She produced an exasperated sigh. “When was the last time you had your eyes checked? I'm thinking it's been too long, because you should be able to do better than that.” She placed the tip of her index finger beneath one of the desks in the foreground and moved it quickly from side to side as if trying to rub out a stain. “Zero in on this, if you please.”

Finally, he saw what she was getting at. “Oh, that's a little girl all crouched underneath that desk.” He couldn't have looked more surprised. “Don't tell me that's you? What were you doing under there?”

“It most certainly is me,” she told him. “And everyone else in the room besides. We were all just following orders. Now do you remember?” She could tell by the way his eyes were moving rapidly from side to side that he was searching for an answer but couldn't find one. “Oh, for heaven's sake, Locke, didn't you have these drills at your school growing up over in the Delta? It was all the rage in 1952 or 1953—somewhere around there.”

The smile that broke across his face was one of relief as much as anything else. “Oh, yes, you're right. We did. I'd forgotten all about them. Those beyond ridiculous H-bomb drills.”

“Had to be the silliest things human beings have ever thought up to do. Our teacher, Miz Sallie Cowart, called them ‘duck and cover,' ” Miss Voncille explained further and then started laughing. “Imagine. Ducking under our desks and covering our heads on cue was supposed to save us from any kind of nuclear blast. We had them here in Cherico once a week, so imminent was the threat of nuclear attack from the Russians, they seemed to delight in telling us. And when you went to the movies at the Starbright, they were practically in every Movietone newsreel with that narrator and his booming voice: ‘Today's schoolchildren smartly prepare for nuclear war in the classroom while they take a break from learning their lessons! See how they respond bravely and quickly to their teacher's command!' Or something like that.”

Locke joined her in a fit of laughter. “Hey, my school even went one step further. They decided to issue us dog tags so our bodies could be identified after the nuclear blast. Like there would be anybody around to clean up the mess and say, “Hey, over here in this corner is what's left of Locke Marshall Linwood! Oh, and look over there—that's little Roe Anne Stacey! Their parents will be so glad to know we've found them!”

She nudged him gently with her elbow. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust!”

After the laughter had died down, Locke frowned her way. “What made you bring all that up? I haven't thought of it in years.”

“The truth of the matter is, I was just thinking that you and I are survivors, mainly,” she began, speaking as calmly as possible to drive home her point. “We came through these nuclear blast drills as gullible little kids and then the loss of our loved ones for real as adults. But nothing could take us out. We ought to give ourselves a pat on the back and then move on.” She waited to see if he was tumbling to her ploy, but he appeared to be mostly perplexed as she closed up the scrapbook and put it to one side.

“But I think we have moved on,” he said, fingering his lapel absent-mindedly. “I mean, we're smack dab in the middle of this very comfortable relationship, aren't we? Is there something you aren't happy with?”

Well, the scrapbook “duck and cover” ploy hadn't worked, either, it seemed. Enough of all this beating around the bush. Miss Voncille now realized she was just going to have to be more direct and hope for the best. Men could be so obtuse sometimes.

“Locke, I'm sure you know I have the most profound respect for your beautiful and beloved wife, Pamela,” she began, taking the bull by the horns. “Why, if it hadn't been for that touching letter she left you encouraging you to get on with your life the way she did, you and I might never have become an item. It was just lovely that she gave you permission to try for love again after her death, and I'll forever be indebted to her for that.”

He patted her hand and beamed. “She thought we might be perfect for each other, and she was right. Her woman's intuition, I suppose. So what's the problem? I got together with you just as she suggested, didn't I?”

Miss Voncille forged ahead. It was too late to retreat now. “It's just that your Pamela enjoyed something I don't have. She was happily married to you for many, many years. I'd like that to happen to me—or us, rather. But I haven't been asked yet. The truth is, I'd like very much to do this up proper at the altar.”

He withdrew his hand from hers and sat up straight, giving her a look of disbelief. “Really? You want a church wedding with all the trimmings? I thought we could go on indefinitely the way we have been. You know, back and forth between our two houses as the spirit moves us. One night it's your sleepover, the next night it's mine. That way we never get in a rut.”

She did her best to smile at his response, but what she really wanted to do was shake him by his lapels until he came to his senses. This was no laughing matter, no “spend-the-night company” issue to be resolved rationally with not even a nod to the underlying emotions about to bubble up and over.

“I would have to say no to the ‘all the trimmings' part. We're too old for that. Why, we probably wouldn't even get the first present. Not even a gift certificate. People would figure we have everything we need, and they'd be right about that. But we're not too old to walk down the aisle or exchange vows in a small ceremony somewhere,” she told him. “Why, it could even just be the two of us with a justice of the peace. We're both on polite speaking terms with Henry Marsden, even though he makes that awful whistling sound with his teeth whenever the letter
S
comes along.”

“Sibilance,” he noted immediately, quickly returning to her suggestion. “But why go to the trouble? Weddings are for people starting out in life. After that, who's really paying attention?” His tone was earnest enough, and she could have strangled him again for that.

Instead, she kept it soft and cuddly, brushing up against him. “Look at it from my point of view, Locke. I was cheated out of my first marriage to Frank by the Tet Offensive, and maybe there's this old-fashioned part of me that wants you to make me an honest woman, to use a term you don't hear very much these days.”

He looked confused, as if she were suddenly speaking a foreign language. Then came several open-mouthed starts at conversation before he finally settled on the right words. “This doesn't sound like you at all, Voncille. You don't need to justify yourself to anyone. You're practically a Cherico institution.”

“I couldn't care less about gossip,” she said, the irritation rising in her tone as she reverted to her prickly alter ego. “Although I've been an easy target for many years. Still, I've always shrugged and walked down the street or in and out of the library for all those ‘Who's Who in Cherico?' meetings with my head held high. ‘There goes that crazy old retired schoolteacher whose house looks like a jungle inside,' I could almost hear them whispering the moment I passed by. But this is just about you and me, Locke. Something inside me wants to make this relationship of ours legal. I've been hinting around for weeks now, but between you actually sitting down to read
Forrest Gump
and enjoying my cooking, you don't seem to have room for anything else in that distinguished gray head of yours.”

His face was a perfect blank, his eyes and mouth an inverted triangle of zeroes. “I had no idea you felt this way.”

“Men!” She let her little exclamation lie there for a while. “I don't know what else to say to you at this point.”

He made a strange little noise in his throat at first, but she could tell he thought he was being charming when he finally answered her. “We're creatures of habit. We like the nests our women build for us.”

But Miss Voncille was in no mood for settling or being summarily dismissed. “Yes, well, I think I'd like some credit for the nest. It's been gnawing at me, and I can't change the way I feel about it. I'm just too set in my ways.”

“Could I have some time to think about it?” he said, the color returning to his face. “I'd probably like to sound my children out, if you don't mind.”

Miss Voncille couldn't fight off the displeasure that settled into her features. That was a new one. He had rarely brought up either his daughter or son in their everyday conversations. He had told her that both Carla and Locke Jr. were married, had two children apiece, and both lived out of state with his grandchildren—but had not volunteered much more. Locke remained the reserved, gentlemanly type who would never force pictures from his wallet upon anyone, even if they asked in the insincere manner that people sometimes do, and she had spent enough time with him now to know that there just never seemed to be any letters or postcards lying around, no long-distance phone calls to report—not even any e-mails showing up on his computer to answer.

“Why does that sound like an excuse to me, Locke?” she wanted to know, refusing to let up. But she realized she had pressed some sort of hot button when he matched her mundane frown with a startling one of his own.

“Voncille, are you trying to ruin what we've got going?”

“Good heavens, Locke, I'm not asking you to approve my riding naked the length of Perry Street on a horse,” she said, her prickly temperament now full-blown. She had promised him several months earlier she would try to stop being such a diva and knuckle-rapping schoolmarm around him, and she had largely lived up to that. But he was testing her sorely, and she took a deep breath before continuing. “Why, I was even thinking it could be as simple as our exchanging vows at one of my ‘Who's Who in Cherico?' meetings at the library. After all, that's where I first really got to know you and Pamela. Neither of you ever missed a meeting.”

His face showed no signs of cottoning to the idea, and he took his time reacting to her proposal. “I'm well aware of that. But getting married in that crowded little library? How would that work? Whoever has a library card has an automatic invitation? I know Miz Mayhew is trying hard to promote the library and stay one step ahead of Councilman Sparks by expanding the book club, but don't you think that's going too far?”

“If you don't like that idea, we could always use a church,” she continued, steeling herself further. “I'm a Presbyterian and you're an Episcopalian, but I'd be comfortable getting married in your church if you want it that way. I've always been comfortable with you bobtail Catholics. All the pomp and ceremony without the guilt, my mother used to say.”

He was wincing now. “Why do we have to rush into this?”

At that point she decided to back off. If this was round one, she had lost it. It was time to bandage the little jabs and cuts, and move on with new footwork for another day. It was still a match she had no intention of losing. She was going to hold him to his gentlemanly ways or die trying.