Wedding Bell Blues - [18]

“Excuse me?”

Big Ben cackled and nodded toward a long, shiny silver car parked in the rear of the lot. “That’sfor you.” He pressed the keys into Lily’s hand. “A little wedding present from Jeanie and me.”

Lily’s vocabulary failed her. “Uh...I...uh ...”

“Now I know it ain’t as nice as Benny Jack’s Lexus,” Big Ben apologized. “But you really sprungthis marriage thing on us, and a New Yorker was the best we could do on short notice. I tell you what,Lily. You stay married to this rascal a year, and we’ll get you any make of car you want!”

“Big Ben, it’s a beautiful car, I ... I just couldn’t accept it.”

“Of course you can,” Big Ben said. “It’s just our way of welcoming you into the family. This car’sa piece of shit compared to what we got Sheila and Tracee when they married our other boys. But we hada little more notice then, so we could go to Atlanta and pick out somethin’ nice, you understand.”

“Well, uh ... thank you.” Lily felt as though she were on some bizarre game show, an updatedversion of The Liar’s Club, where the gay person who put up the most convincing pretense ofheterosexuality could win a snazzy new car.

“So, little lady,” Big Ben boomed, “how ’bout taking us for a ride?”

“Sure...okay.”

The plush interior of the Chrysler New Yorker had that unmistakable new-car smell. It was anundeniably gorgeous vehicle, and yet it wasn’t a car Lily would ever have picked out for herself, even ifshe had possessed the funds to buy it. While she was sure that in Big Ben’s eyes, the New Yorker’sroominess made it a good family car, to her, a big car meant nothing but bad gas mileage and moreexhaust fumes to pollute the environment. Besides, weren’t gays supposed to be boycotting the Chryslercompany?

Damn it, Lily warned herself, if you’re going to pull off the happy hetero bit, you’re going to haveto start thinking less. She turned the key in the ignition. “Where to?” she asked brightly.

“Hang a left out of the parking lot,” Big Ben said from the backseat. He had insisted on sitting inthe back so the “newlyweds” could sit in the front together.

Lily hung a left as instructed and drove past barns and fields of cattle. This was her first realexperience with country driving, and she had to admit it was much more pleasant than dealing with thestressful, stop-and-go traffic of the city.

“Now turn right at this church over here.” Lily turned right at the Free Will Baptist Church — aname which she considered an oxymoron.

“Now you’ll wanna go down this road a piece,” Big Ben said.

The road was a rural residential area, dotted with well-maintained brick ranch-style houses.

“Now turn at that mailbox that says 104,” Big Ben directed.

Lily did as she was told, but had no idea why she was pulling into a strange house’s driveway.

She didn’t begin to catch on until her hapless husband said, “Now Daddy, what have you gone anddone?” At that moment, Lily saw the realty company sign in the yard with the banner across itannouncing, SOLD.

“I know it’s nothing fancy” Big Ben said, “but it’s a good house — built solid — and it’ll do ya tillyou can build the house you really want.”

“But, Daddy,” Ben said, “we were just going to rent an apartment.”

“Now, Benny Jack,” Big Ben said, “you know there ain’t an apartment in Faulkner County that’sworth living in. And besides, you remember that broken-down old trailer you and your mother and mehad to live in back when I was first starting the company?”

“No, I don’t remember it. We moved out of that trailer when I was two years old.”

“Well, it don’t matter whether you remember it or not. It was no place to raise a child. And soon asthe money from the company started rolling in, I swore that no son of mine would ever have to livewithout a decent roof over his head.” He produced a house key from his jeans pocket. “So whaddaya say,kids? You wanna take a look at her?”

The house had a garage large enough to hold both Ben’s Lexus and Lily’s new monstrosity of asedan. Architecturally, the dwelling resembled a brick shoe box. Everything about the house bespoke anormal, heterosexual respectability. Lily hated it.

Inside, the walls were white and the carpeting beige. Each room was square, pristine, and sterile.

The only thing Lily liked about it was that there were three bedrooms: one for Mimi, one for Ben, and onefor her. “So what kind of monthly payments are we gonna be making on this place?” she asked.

Big Ben looked puzzled. “Payments?”

“Yeah,” Lily said. “I mean, you made the down payment, right, but then Ben and I will pay —”

Big Ben hooted. “You and Ben won’t have to pay a dime! I bought this house outright — withcash money!”

Lily leaned against a white wall to steady herself. She couldn’t imagine having the kind of moneywhere you could just buy a house, any house, on the spot and pay for it all in cash. These people reallywere loaded.

“I know it don’t look like much right now, since there ain’t a stick of furniture in it,” Big Ben said.

“But picking out furniture’s a woman’s job.” He checked his watch — a Rolex, Lily noticed. “Lily, if