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What Spearmint Said Last Night
by
Melanie Faith Last night, Spearmint said, “There ain’t no way.” “No way at all?” I tilted my head so pretty so he could see that heart-shaped birthmark right underneath my chin. The one he’d slipped once and said was sexy. We was on our way home from Junie B’s Juke Joint out on Mill House Road, when I broached the topic for the hundredth time. I knew he was looking my way from the rearview mirror but pretending otherwise entirely. I crossed and uncrossed my bare legs, smiling to myself all the while, relaxing in the bed of his ’84 Ford pickup. Nights like that, the stars so bright and twinkly over Clayton’s Corner, I always prefer a hundred times the view from the tailgate to the front seat. And anyway, I was trying to make-believe to Spearmint that I might just get mad if he didn’t cave. That we might be through, as in capital T. Through with whatever it is we have going. Not that I could ever get over Spearmint. Been stuck on him since sixth grade. Back when he first got the name Spearmint, after Buddy Royale said no one never saw him eat a thing at lunch, just chew that old spearmint gum in the tiny green packs and that’s why he was always so skinny. It warn’t true - it’s just that Spearmint’s Daddy didn’t know how to pack a lunch and so Spearmint just gathered whatever he remembered, which often warn’t nothing but a pack of gum before the bus rolled down the street. Even still, don’t he love that spearmint gum! There’s always a pack in one pocket or other. I adore that little quirk. I’d forgive Spearmint anything. But he don’t need to know that. No matter. Spearmint can’t resist me, and I can’t resist these type functions. I was homecoming queen two years running, first time ever happened in South Kalter High, and Spearmint was on hand both times to escort me. Mama ain’t so sure my pouting’s gonna work this time. This morning, she stood, bare feet against the kitchen tiles Daddy just put down, holding the half and half (Daddy’s request) in one hand, and with the other she pontificated. “Keep goin’, you’ll drive that boy away. Wait and see. Nothin’ but craziness.” I smoothed the wrinkles in my satin slip and calmly reminded her I never was scared of craziness, and neither has anyone else been in this family. Great-great-grandma Stephanie drove a tin lizzie through Feld Dean’s garden patch one night just ‘cause he threatened not to marry her (he did, but it took a dozen smooshed turnips and odds and ends of peanut plants and a few pancake flat creeper vines to get him to the altar). Then there was Grandaddy Gene O’Hallagin who swore he’d stand underneath Grandma Jeanette’s window and sing, “Bicycle Built For Two” all night and day for high heavens to hear until she’d come for a ride (she did, but it was in his Buick, come Sunday morning for services). I chomped my hominy grits. “Need we go into your own story, Mama?” That was the wild card. I knew that would keep her quiet. Half the town knows how I arrived three months after the wedding, the other half suspects I was a mite premature. “It’s dirty tricks like them you don’t wanna be pullin’ on me, Missy. Your Daddy and I loved each other, both. With Spearmint, I don’t know if it’s that way.” Daddy came into the room right then. “Come on now, Ruth, give the girl a break. If she thinks Spearmint’s gonna come, who’s to say he won’t? He’s a good enough kid.” He winked at me, while Mama plunked a spoon into his coffee and put the milk back into the refrigerator without adding any to his cup. I always did say I was Daddy’s favorite and marrying Mama was just a desperate afterthought to my creation. Desperation lies at the heart of our family tree, and I suspect mostly it’s nothing but a weeping willow. Sad branches sweeping the ground before the union, even sadder afterwards. Great-grandpa, it’s told, died to get around coming home night after night to Stephanie. Grandma had that incident with the preacher Boggs in town, and he ended up being the one to take a walk one night, while Grandaddy held the shotgun and Rusty Reems, the sheriff, supervised the scene from his patrol car parked across the way. Around South Kalter, we sure can look the other way when we want, all for the sake of love. Or preserving it. I say, most of us O’Hallagins just end up ruining it for ourselves, if we’d be honest about it. But as Grandma O’Hallagin put it, “Love and honesty never was snug as a bug. No, they ain’t bedfellows in the least,” and I guess she’d know, after all. On the way home last night, Spearmint said, “You ain’t gonna try’n drag me to no starchy affair now?” But I kept silent, just pulling the Emory board out of my purse and begun whittling down my pinkie nail. It always does grow faster and longer than the rest. He needed to stew a bit longer yet. I was chosen to model the Princess Prudence Cut Gown for the South Kalter Bridal Fest, and I couldn’t just escort myself up the stage. I needed me a groom. Spearmint and me, we’d fooled around once or twice after a few Alabama slammers, and twice he’d told me he kinda felt sweet on me, though he always pretended it was just the drink when we met up with Sage and Marney at the plant the next day. But I know otherwise. “Are ya, Missy?” Bingo. I knew I had him then. I’ve known Spearmint since we was in diapers, sucking on juice packs and throwing sand in the othern’s face in the sandbox. Nothing messes with him like the silent treatment. Skeeters in the night, all right, long stretches of open road suit him fine, but just try not answering him once. Those Hopkins can’t take that. His mama used to tell his daddy, “If you can’t answer me but this once, there ain’t gonna be no me to come home to.” Said it ’til it come true when we’s twelve. “Saddest thing I ever saw, that woman drivin’ herself out the door,” my mama said about Spearmint’s mama at the time, but Spearmint couldn’t help it, no more than his daddy could help his unfortunate accident that weakened his hearing at the Clarin’s Gap sawmill. Come to think of it, the Hopkins family tree ain’t exactly stellar along the romance line, neither, but what me and Spearmint has is gonna make it, no matter what for crazies we both got cluttering up our family forests. I just want Spearmint to walk me down that aisle. It don’t even have to be the real-deal one, though I ain’t gonna lie. If he asked, I’d look into those big brown puppy dog eyes and say yes tomorrow. But Spearmint ain’t likely to say them words hisself. He’s more the coon-dog hunting kind. The fishing for bass and stripies kind, not fishing for accolades nor compliments. To boot, I think he’s maybe scared, after what happened to his mama and daddy. We don’t talk about it, but it’s necessary for him to see how it could be with us. I’ve been wanting him to see for almost ten years now. That’s saying something at twenty-one. I coulda gone to South Georgia Tech or even enrolled in them beauty school courses, like Patty Ann. Look at where that got her. Her own shop in town where she turns a mean little profit. Paid off half the house for her and Mike last month. Baby on the way. Sister seems happy. “She’s on her way, that one,” Mama says. Meaning, look at your little sister, Patty Ann. A year behind you and already years ahead. I ain’t gonna lie, I wouldn’t mind ending up like Patty Ann, making more of something out of myself. Get out of Mama and Daddy’s hair. But Daddy, at least, ain’t complaining. “No hurries, Missy. Romance ain’t no finish line performance.” Seems Spearmint’s been taking the same philosophy course as Daddy. If there’s one thing Spearmint says every time I hint this could be serious, it’s, “We got time, Missy. We got time for serious.” Then he adjusts his Braves cap, fidgets with his curly hair a bit, and turns the other way. Away from me. But that’s ok. I know better. Timing’s everything, and this pageant at the expo grounds this afternoon is all I’ve got to get a shot at Spearmint. When he sees me in this dress, he’ll want me on his arm, he just can’t think far enough ahead to know it. Just the sight of me all prettied up, and he’ll start thinking about a wedding of his own. He will. In that pickup last night, the silent treatment almost guaranteed it. “Now you ain’t talkin’ to me. Is that how it is?” I put the Emory board back into my handbag and concentrated on the Little Dipper. How it tipped its little hook of diamonds into the drowsy black velvet sky. After Spearmint’s mama left, it was hard times for the Hopkins. Half the time Spearmint hung around our place, hoping for an eyeful of Patty Ann (she always was the more developed one, the cute little brunette, but I got Daddy’s baby-fine blonde hair and that irresistible birthmark, so I’d say we was about even in the looks department), ending up playing forts and war strategy games with me until the sun set. Daddy got me a telescope that summer for my birthday, and we all liked to dawdle outside on the carport with it while Daddy lectured, showing off his knowledge of the Heavens from his days in Boy Scout Pack #42, Kinnesaw County Branch. One of those summer nights I stole my first kiss from Spearmint, even though it warn’t nothing more than a peck on the cheek that spread to his closed lips. I could taste that spearmint gum on his skin, sweet and syrupy, and it was enough for me, although I suspected he’d a whole lot more have wished it were Patty Ann out there with him, making the moves. It took Spearmint two years to get over Patty, and by that point, I was looking a whole lot more appealing. I’d given up on overalls and graduated to Daisy Dukes, which didn’t hurt nothing neither. Spearmint pretended to be all cool as a cucumber but I never believed it for a minute. I saw the way he appraised my legs with a wishing eye. “All right, I’ve had about enough of this now, Missy. You either talk, or I’m pulling this truck over right here.” He braked. We were one block from my house. I could see the light on in the living room, where Mama no doubt sat watching reruns of Steel Magnolias on the movie channel, pretending she warn’t waiting up for me. I could walk home from the spot in less than five minutes flat. I stifled a laugh with my fist. He slammed the door and ambled back. The little vein along his temple was pulsing a bit, like that one time his truck backfired and he dented the body of the truck by backing into a tree stump. Cost him $2100 damage. But that pulse was mighty adorable. I wanted to press my palm into it and coo “calm down” into his ear, like you might a wee baby boy. “Listen here. You ain’t no Patty Ann, and I ain’t no Mike. All right?” Now that really done it. I was floored. What did he mean, he warn’t no Mike? “I know what idea you got runnin’ through that purty head of yours, and you can forgit it. I ain’t gonna walk you down no aisle, expo or otherwise. So if that’s all your after, you can just forgit it.” There was only one way to top him. I started to sob. The kind of sobs where you get them spiky inhales for breath, but the breath is all choppy and halted-like. Them kind of tears. His face slumped. He shifted from boot to boot, then sighed. I knew I had him. “Myron Stutzfuss Hopkins, all these years and you don’t know me better’n that, I don’t even want you to take me down that aisle no more!” For dramatic effort, I slammed my foot into the tailgate, thinking it would open with a swift kick. I forgot I had worn them open-toed Dr. Sholes sandals. My eyes really did start to smart at that wallop. “Here, now. You’re gonna hurt yourself, Missy.” He pressed the tailgate open and held out his hand to assist me. It was working. I could hear it in his voice. He was plumb exasperated. “Why would you care? We’re just buddies when you need a pal. Any other time, I mean nothin’ to you.” I ignored his hand and jumped on my own, misjudging the distance between myself and the curb. My face almost hit the pavement, and I lost a sandal along the berm of the road, but no longer cared. There was a point to be made, guilt to be gathered, an escort to finagle. No turning back now. “Just ‘cause I don’t wanna go to no stupid society to-do don’t mean I don’t care none. Where do you women get these crazy ideas?” Now, I can stand just about anything from Spearmint. Belittling my gender ain’t one of them. What kind of self-respecting woman would let him get away with that? What would I say to our little daughter one day, when she wants to know what her daddy thinks of women? No, that was a sorry little mistake Spearmint made there, and he had to pay. However much I love him. “We women? We women, huh!” I picked up my shoe and waved it in my hand at him. “You see here, if we women get any ideas it’s only ‘cause you men, no you boys, can’t help a girl out ‘cause it might cause you some inconvenience.” Spearmint looked like I had just slapped his face. I did feel half-bad about the way I was treating him, but relinquishing then wouldn’t have won me Spearmint’s arm. “Listen here, Missy….” was the last thing Spearmint said, before I cut him off. “No, you listen here. I’m gonna walk myself right on home without your presence. I’m gonna take two aspirin to settle my eyes, which probly never will be able to rest after this, and then I’m gonna wake up bright and early tomorrow mornin’ for that bridal expo. You have two choices. You can put on that suit I seen you wear three years ago at graduation and show up to walk me down that aisle like a man. Or you can be a coward and sit at home alone for the rest of your nights, ‘cause you won’t be seein’ me no more. You hear that, Myron?” I could feel him wince at his Christian name, but I didn’t even look back nor wait to hear his truck pull up the block, into his daddy’s driveway, three houses down. I slammed the door on Mama’s smart comment about waking up half the block with my bad manners and decreasing her property values, and true to my word, hit the hay before I could reflect too much. Spearmint would come. “Spearmint will come. I just know it.” I told my daddy at breakfast this morning, and he nodded. Mama just rolled her eyes, “You better hope he shows. Have you thought ‘bout what you’re gonna do without no escort if he decides that little scene last night was the last straw between ya?” There’s something else about we O’Hallagins that my mama don’t understand, herself being both Dean and Shimer, the sort who are the side-kicks to everyone and the leader of none. We O’Hallagins take a mighty dislike to someone else writing out our unhappy endings before time has told. Particularly when we haven’t forecasted a bad ending in the first place. “I don’t need to qualify that with an answer, Mama.” “You’ll look like a laughingstock of this whole town here, that’s what’ll happen. And I told you, didn’t I tell you two weeks ago? That nice Marshall Tucker’s son, Wally. You know him, Bert - works with me down at the Winn Dixie, best bagger boy we got. Wally was throwin’ hints galore this week, but no. You have to throw all your chances at Spearmint, wonderin’ if he’s really gonna show.” I had heard enough. I pushed the spoon into the bowl with the kind of finality that set the bowl to spinning slightly and stomped up the stairs, repeating to myself Spearmint’s gonna come. He’s gonna come. He’s gonna….until I felt sure. Until I felt sure that I might not be so sure. No matter. We O’Hallagins might be bass-ackwards over love matters, but we see matters through to the end, with as cheery a face as we got. There were no guarantees for Great-great-grandma Stephanie when she was rolling that Model T of her daddy’s over Feld Dean’s garden patch, and it worked out for her. Well, worked out, in sorts. I put my dress over the regulation silk slip given to me by Mary Evers, fashion coordinator of the coveted expo for five years running, and drove to the grounds. Mary greeted me here backstage and sent me to Pammy Jones, the manager at the First National, for makeup. Now normally, I would say that Pammy Jones is about as qualified to be anybody’s makeup artist as a pig is qualified to sit right down and knit me a sweater, seeing as how Pammy’s makeup sense is a la Tammy Faye Baker, but I have bigger fish to fry today. There’s the matter of what my mama thinks, what I’m starting to wonder and, most importantly, what Spearmint said last night. We got twenty minutes ‘til I’m set to walk this gown down that aisle, and it’s anybody’s guess now. I’d like to hope my mama ain’t right, ‘cause I really don’t wanna follow through on that threat. I don’t wanna have to give up Spearmint. Those sad brown eyes and that lanky old step he’s got. I want him back. I want him back here with me. I wanna feel him tuck my arm into his, and hear the I-do music loud and clear as we find the x-that-marks-the-spot of red electrical tape on the stage. I wanna feel him brush his sweet Spearmint breath across my cheek, as he leans in to whisper, “See, Missy, I really do care somethin’ awful. I do.” |