Big Stone Gap Read online

  I blurt, “Thank you kindly, Sweet Sue. And thank you, Foxes.” Sweet Sue is relieved as I accept the champagne.

  “Hey, boys, how ’bout a song for Sweet Sue, the prettiest gal in town?” shouts our drummer from the pit.

  “Thank you, boys,” Sweet Sue says magnanimously. Then she leans into the pit and kisses Jack Mac long and hard. The crowd cheers. Then a chorus of “Ask her, Jack! Ask her, Jack!” The band pushes Jack Mac out of the pit, onto the stage. Wanda Brickey, who plays the mountain matriarch in the Drama, bangs the floor with her walking stick. “Jack Mac, if you don’t marry this girl, it don’t make a lick of sense.”

  The crowd calms down and waits for Jack’s response. “Folks, y’all know I’m a private person—”

  Before he can finish, Sweet Sue pipes up, “The answer is yes. Yes!” She kisses Jack Mac all over the face. She shouts, “I love this man!” Her sons, still in mountain-boy costume, run up to the stage. The crowd cheers. The cold bottle of champagne I hold seems as though it’s in the wrong hands all of a sudden. So I make a stage-right cross and hand it to Jack Mac.

  “Congratulations!” I say happily. The crowd goes wild.

  Jack Mac leans into my ear and says, “Thank you.”

  I look at him. “Call your mother.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Jack Mac kisses my cheek. Sweet Sue grabs him away.

  “Hey, Ava, he’s mine. Find your own man!”

  The crowd laughs; it’s one of those long, rolling laughs. Now, when you’re the town spinster, jokes of this sort aren’t one bit funny. Around here, being married makes you a prize. No one has claimed me, and although it shouldn’t hurt me, it does. I could cry. Instead, I bend forward and laugh louder than anyone in the house.

  Theodore, as if on cue, comes up behind me and puts his hands around my waist. Then he announces, “She has a man, Sweet Sue.” I look up at Theodore, the most beautiful man I have ever seen. I lean against him.

  “Well, I didn’t mean to . . .” Sweet Sue stutters. Jack Mac cues the band, gracefully saving his girlfriend’s face. He shrugs at me.

  Theodore takes me in his arms to dance. The music fills the theater. Somebody’s singing the lyrics, but all I hear is Theodore’s voice saying, “She has a man! She has a man!” onstage, in public, and loudly for all to hear! He looks down at me and smiles. I feel wanted, claimed, and—I can’t believe it—alluring. Instead of looking off as we dance, I look into his eyes, and they are as blue as the sky on the backdrop.

  And then we stop. Theodore kisses me. It’s not the usual friendly kiss I have become accustomed to all of these years. So at first I don’t lock in. I’m confused. Then his lips, wordless and soft, persist. My spine turns from rivets of bone into a velvet ribbon spinning off its wheel and pooling onto the floor. I hold on to him like Myrna Loy did Clark Gable when they jumped out of a two-seater plane in Test Pilot. My waist is on a swivel as he dips me. But the kiss doesn’t end. Moments later, when it does, my body feels like it is full of goose feathers. Theodore holds my face while everyone dances around us, offering looks of approval.

  “You need lipstick,” he says, squinting at me.

  “You don’t.” I dab the Really Red I left there off of his face. We laugh. It’s one of those shared moments that can only come between two people who know each other so well that it borders on irony. Theodore pulls me close. I rest my head on his shoulder. He smells fresh, a mix of peppermint and spice. I look across the dance floor. Iva Lou gives me a thumbs-up.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Theodore says with an urgency I’ve never heard before. He takes my hand and yanks me off the stage, and I skip down the stairs behind him.

  Nellie Goodloe, president of the Lonesome Pine Arts and Crafts Guild, stops us. “Mr. Tipton, I need to speak to you about candidate John Warner’s visit to the Gap.”

  “We were just leaving,” Theodore says firmly. Nellie turns to me.

  “Ave Maria, tell him this is important,” she says.

  “It can wait,” Theodore tells her with finality.

  “It can’t wait. I got a call from John Warner’s press person, and they want a confirmation that the town is going to go all out for his campaign stump through Southwestern Virginia.”

  Nellie’s mouth keeps moving, but I can’t hear her. Her lips and hair are orange, and she has placed her hand on Theodore’s chest. John Warner is married to Elizabeth Taylor of National Velvet fame, and they’re coming to town and Nellie wants Theodore to put together a tribute salute in her honor. The town wants to show off its best asset: the Powell Valley High School marching band. They want a doozy of a halftime show. I can’t contemplate all this right now. After tonight my life as it has been will be changed forever. I am a lover! In the scrap heaps of these hills of coal, someone found me. I am wanted! I have been waiting all of my life for this.

  As folks sail by in a blur, talking and laughing, it occurs to me that they probably believe that Theodore and I, as close as we are, have a full relationship already. But since Theodore moved to town and we became friends, my mother had been ill, and I didn’t feel right spending time away from her. So Theodore and I have had friendship without romance. At first I thought something might be wrong, but now I understand. He was waiting. Waiting for my heart to settle down from its grief, so it could make room for him!

  Now the years seem wasted, like a lifetime, and I want to shove bossy Nellie Goodloe down on the wood chips and gag her with the polka-dot scarf she has tied around her neck chuck-wagon-style. Doesn’t she understand that my body is filled with such longing that I have the strength to turn a truck over with my bare hands? That I have dreamed of wrapping myself around this man from the first day we met? Can’t she see that I’m a ripe plum that will explode if touched? I interrupt them, and I am not one bit sorry.

  “Excuse me. This is something you two can discuss later. Good night, Nellie.”

  I grab Theodore, and we walk out of the theater onto the street. “My house?”

  “Great.” Theodore helps me into the front seat of his truck, which has now turned into a stately carriage that will take me from my dreams to a real place. He climbs in and puts his arm around me as we back out. I think to myself, Time stops when we get what we want.

  I haven’t made spaghetti since Mama died. I pull out her recipe book. When she found out she was sick, she wrote everything down for me. The writing starts out in good English, then loses its clarity. She tried to finish the task when she was really sick. At the end of the notebook, most of the recipes are in pure Italian.

  “Cut up the garlic,” I tell Theodore. “The basil’s in the window garden. I’ll start the water.”

  Theodore goes about his chores. I notice we’re not talking. Is this what happens to folks when things turn physical? Do kisses take the place of words? I think back on my past romances, all so long ago, and they seem insignificant, childish and silly—probably because they were. I wasn’t a real woman then, a woman who knew herself. A woman alone in the world, free. Now I am a woman without strings, guilt, or parents, and I don’t know what to say. How do I begin?

  “How long have your parents been married?” I ask innocently.

  “Forty-two years.”

  “Are they happy?”

  “They’re perfect for each other. He drinks and she hides it. Why do you ask?”

  “We’ve never talked about it before.”

  “It seems like we have. I think you know everything about me.”

  “Have you ever been in love before?”

  “Have you?” he asks, quite deliberately not answering me first.

  This is a loaded question for me. I don’t guess that I have, although there was a nice Polish Catholic guy from Chicago—I met him at a craps table during a Mardi Gras fund-raiser at Saint Mary’s. I went with him for a year and a half. He wanted to marry me, but I couldn’t see it. When it was over I was sad, but I wasn’t broken-hearted.

  “I guess I was. Once.” I pick up the garlic and swish it
into the olive oil in the pan on the stove.

  “Only once?”

  “Yes.”

  Theodore mulls this over, and I take a seat at the kitchen table and watch him chop some basil. I wonder if I like him there at the sink chopping. Does he fit in this house? Does he fit in my life? Will we live here in this house when we’re married or in his cabin out on Aviation Road? I hear my mother’s voice: “Pazienza! Slow down! Think, Ave Maria! Think!”

  I straighten the silverware on the placemat. I like two placemats. It looks like a family lives here again. The table holds four. Children! Am I too old? Some of my classmates from high school have grandchildren. I am not too old. Thank God I have good Italian genes. No Scotch-Irish wrinkles for me. What am I thinking? What am I saying? I catch my reflection in the steamed glass of the kitchen window. I am dewy. No! I’m soaking wet! My palms and face are sweating. I’m making myself sick and nervous. I’m a practical person, but I have always tended to daydream, and now I’m picturing myself married to this man and for some reason it’s a real romance killer. I don’t want to think about marriage just yet—I just want to have some sex. I need to be held! God help me!

  “People are gonna talk about us,” I promise him.

  “Let them.”

  “Why are we cooking?” I’m asking this question to be coy and imply, Let’s not eat, let’s kiss.

  “Aren’t you hungry?” Theodore asks.

  I nod. But I’m hungry for everything: food, him, and all that life has to offer. Everything seems possible to me all of a sudden. How will I tell him?

  Theodore continues chopping. What beautiful hands he has! His large hand and squarish fingers are in total control of the paring knife. The motion reminds me of a French movie I saw in Charlottesville once. When I go on buying trips, I make it my business to see foreign movies. We don’t get them down here, so they’re a treat. French movies always have love scenes in the kitchen. Somebody is eating something drippy, like a ripe persimmon, and next thing you know it’s a close-up of lips and hands and off go the lights and their clothes, and pretty soon nobody’s talking. I check my ceramic fruit bowl on the counter. One black banana. Please don’t let this be an omen.

  “I haven’t . . . Well, I guess what I’m trying to . . .” Theodore keeps chopping. I persist. “What I want to say is . . .”

  “I’m thinking, Ave.”

  It may have been a long time since I’ve been with a man, but it doesn’t take a sex goddess to figure out that thinking is not a good sign. Men don’t think about sex. They think about how and where and when, but they could care less about the why.

  “You don’t want me,” I say plainly, hoping I’m wrong. There, I’ve said it. The water in the pot is boiling foam. Theodore drops his knife and stirs and blows as bubbles trickle over the sides of the pot. He catches as many as he can with a spoon, but it keeps bubbling.

  “Give me a hand.”

  “You’ve got it under control.” I say this with matter-of-factness, but the truth is, my legs aren’t working. I’m in a state of shock, from the ankles up. I just made a statement that scares me, and I need to stay very small, right here in this straight-backed chair, or I’m afraid of what I might do. Theodore moves the pot off the burner. The foam subsides. He pours the spaghetti into the colander in the sink. He shakes it hard. He leaves the pot in the sink and goes to the stove. He stirs the sauce.

  “We call that sauce shway shway,” I say, making my only contribution to the dinner.

  “What is that?”

  “It’s Italian dialect from where my mama came from. Shway shway means ‘fast.’ Fast sauce. Instant sauce.”

  “It tastes great.”

  “Fresh basil.”

  Theodore pours the sauce onto the spaghetti. He pulls out plates and forks and sets the table.

  “So you want to tell me why you kissed me?”

  “You kissed me.” Theodore looks at me directly.

  “No. You kissed me.” Oh God. I’m yelling.

  “I went with the situation. You were kissing me, so I kissed back. And after what Sweet Sue said, I felt you needed to be kissed.”

  “So you were doing me a favor?”

  “Yeah.”

  This is one of those moments when the steam between a man and a woman creates a wall. It’s so thick that I can’t make out Theodore’s face. I do not understand him; doesn’t he know how I feel? I want him. I want this. Where is the kissing Theodore? Where did he go?

  “You aren’t in love with me, Ave.”

  “What?”

  “You got stirred up, that’s all.”

  “I liked the kiss! It was nice! It was welcome.”

  “You said you hadn’t been with a man in a long time. It’s understandable. A cup of water in the desert is welcome, too.”

  I can’t believe what I’m hearing! Theodore is comparing my aching loins to dehydration. This night is not going at all as I had expected.

  “What? What?” Why is it that all I can say is What?

  “I live alone. I like it. I grew up in a family with nine kids, and I’m still thrilled I don’t have to share a bed with someone. I don’t want a ‘thing.’ I like being with you. You are my best friend. I don’t want a relationship.”

  “Everybody wants a relationship!”

  “No. You want a relationship.”

  As we eat, I am sure he is right. It is me. I want to be loved. And I want to blame somebody because I’m not. So let me blame my parents. They’re easy targets—one never loved me and the other leaves me scary letters after she’s passed away. Let me blame life. Life keeps interfering in my plans. First Fred Mulligan was sick; then I took care of Mama, business got to booming, and I took on more and more and thought about myself less and less. Poor me. I straighten up in my chair and summon all my self-esteem in my posture. Then, very casually, I lean toward Theodore.

  “I can’t believe you think I kissed you.”

  “You did. The whole town got a shock.”

  I don’t care about the whole town. I chew in slow motion because I want to digest all of this. I initiated the kiss? I kissed him? What am I really hungry for?

  “You’re going to find a good man, you know.”

  Where? In the Blue Ridge Mountains? On the Trail of the Lonesome Pine? By the banks of the Powell River? Get serious, you transplant from Scranton, PA. Around here, men my age have been married since they were seventeen. Some of them are grandfathers already. There are no men! You are the man! Be my man!

  “You’ll find somebody,” he assures me.

  “Somebody!” Wake up, buster! I’m not the type of woman for a Somebody. I’m picky. I take an hour to eat a tuna-salad sandwich because I pick all the sweet-pickle chunks out of it before I’ll take a bite. I’m vain. I cleanse and cream my face twenty minutes before bedtime, and then I hang my head upside down over the side of my bed for an additional five to prevent jowls. I’m a snob. I want a man who reads. In thirty years I’ve never seen a man on the Bookmobile, except strange Earl Spivey, but he doesn’t count because he’s a lurker, not a reader. If this mystery man isn’t smart, I don’t want him. Why can’t Theodore see this?

  “Okay, maybe not just somebody. How about a good guy, a real winner? When you kissed me tonight, you were impulsive. Daring. People around here saw you with new eyes. You watch. Something will happen.”

  “If you say so.” I say this so weakly, it’s barely audible. Theodore sprinkles cheese on his spaghetti, spins a nice mound of noodles, and eats. He chews normally. Swallows. Like everything is normal! He’s ready to change the subject—like it’s been discussed thoroughly and there’s nothing more to say. He almost seems to be saying, “Okay, we kissed, it was nice, but it’s going no further, so let’s get back to our friendship.”

  “Somebody needs to tell Sweet Sue Tinsley she’s not the homecoming queen anymore.”

  This is another reason I want Theodore. I want to be able to come home and dissect everybody and everything. Why can’t
I have this?

  “She’s afraid somebody will steal her man away.” Theodore shrugs.

  Were Theodore and I even at the same event tonight? The crowd was behind Jack Mac asking Sue to marry him; they kissed passionately, and it looked all sewn up to me. Am I so deprived of physical intimacy that I did not see this? How unobservant am I? Or am I living in some other universe, one I have created out of my own strange perceptions? I look away, out the window and into my yard, and what I see there is not the Potters’ oak tree that grows over the fence but a flash of Jack MacChesney in his underwear, and how strong and bearlike he was, all man, from shoulder to foot. I shake my head to erase the picture. It goes.

  “I want to have sex with you tonight.” There. I just said it right out. Honestly. Clearly. Directly. Well done.

  Theodore puts down his fork (another bad sign). Then he looks at me.

  “You’re beautiful and desirable. But it wouldn’t work. We love each other; we are not in love with each other. If we had sex tonight, sooner or later we wouldn’t be friends. I don’t want to lose that. Would you?”

  Around my fork I have twirled a mountain of spaghetti so large it is the size of a tennis ball.

  I say to Theodore: “I wouldn’t.” But why can’t I have both? The lover and the best friend. Isn’t that the point? I know what I want. I’ve had many years to think about it. When I first saw Theodore at the Drama auditions years ago, my heart skipped a beat. “Kindred spirit” doesn’t begin to describe our connection.