Wedding Bell Blues - [23]

love. Real love was such a natural flow of feeling that it was hard to know how to fake it.

“So, Lily,” Ida said at the point where the sipping of lemonade was becoming a deafening sound,

“how did you and Ben meet?”

“Oh, we’ve been friends for years,” Lily said, trying to smile at Ben adoringly. “It was onlyrecently that we started to become ... more.” She attempted a giggle, but stopped it when she decided shesounded demented.

“Yeah,” Ben added, “Lily and me together—who’d have thought it?”

“It’s just like that movie When Harry Met Sally,” Jeanie said, “where the couple’s been friends foryears before they realize they were meant to be together. I just love mushy movies like that, don’t you,Ida?”

“We don’t see many movies,” Charles answered for her. “Too much bad language.”

Jeanie smiled politely “It is a sight, isn’t it?”

“Well, I think we all know who’s in charge of Hollywood,” Mike said “And it’s not theChristians.”

Lily squeezed Ben’s hand so hard she expected to hear the bones crack. They had been sitting inuncomfortable silence for a few moments when the front door swung open. “Oh, that must be myhusband,” Jeanie said.

It was. Big Ben was wearing his customary plain white T-shirt, blue jeans, and work boots, but hewas smeared from head to toe with what appeared to be axle grease. His lips looked startlingly pink incontrast to the black gunk on his face. “One of the blame machines at the mill broke down, and I had tofix it. You want something done right, you gotta do it yourself.” He nodded at the Maycombs. “I’m BennyJack’s daddy, by the way. Ever’body calls me Big Ben.” He looked down at his grease-blackened paw.

“Don’t mean to seem standoffish, but I don’t reckon y’all’d wanna be shaking my hand right now.”

“Honey —” Jeanie’s voice was tense. “Why don’t you take a shower before you put the steakson?”

“I reckon I will.” Big Ben wiped his brow, smearing grease across his forehead. “Think I’ll justgrab me a be — a Co’Cola first.” It was Big Ben’s custom to consume a six-pack of Budweiser betweenthe time he got home from work and the time he went to bed, but Lily had asked him to abstain while inthe Maycombs’ presence.

Later, as they sat around the dining room table, everyone but Lily and Mimi slicing into huge,bloody slabs of steak, Ida chirped, “Lily, I just don’t see how you can stand to be a vegetarian. I mean,what do you eat?”

Lily smiled so tensely that her jaws ached. “Everything but meat.” She speared a forkful of salad.

“Well,” Charles began, “doesn’t it say in the Bible, though, that the Lord gave man dominion overanimals?”

“Well, Lily’s softhearted when it comes to animals,” Ben said. “You know how women are.”

Charles, Ben, Mike, and Big Ben all shared a laugh about the sentimentality of womenfolk. Whilewringing her napkin under the table as though it were a human neck, Lily noticed that Jeanie rolled hereyes at the men, while Ida laughed right along with them.

They were very different women, Jeanie and Ida. While Jeanie might enjoy reading a romancenovel while lounging in the pool, she definitely knew the difference between fantasy and reality. Shenever let a man have the final word just because of his gender, and as a mother and a businesswoman, sheexuded competence and confidence.

Ida, however, lived in a world in which she unquestioningly took orders from God and herhusband, not necessarily in that order. No matter what her husband and son said, she smiled in agreement.

If Ida ever had any complaints, Lily was sure that she muttered them under her breath instead of sayingthem out loud.

“You know,” Charles began, “I was just saying when we were driving through Versailles how Ikinda envy y’all for living in this small town. Some of the best folks anywhere live in small-townAmerica—God-fearing, hardworking people who aren’t afraid to do for each other.”

Or to mind each other’s business, Lily thought.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Charles continued, “I like where we live out in Cobb County. I could neverlive right in Atlanta, though. There’s a certain element there I just don’t want to associate with. I think youknow who I mean: the crack dealers, the prostitutes, just all the bla —”

“People who haven’t found Jesus yet,” Mike finished for him.

Of course, Lily thought. You Lieutenants of the Lord are willing to disguise your racism in orderto preserve the patriarchy.

“Well, of course,” Ida said, smiling sweetly, “there are ... undesirables wherever you go. In smalltowns, you get the trailer trash and the Holy Rollers.”

“How’s that?” Big Ben asked, leaning over the table intently.

“What my wife means is, those Church of God people,” Charles said. “You know, the ones thatshout and dance and speak in tongues and act crazy.”

“They’re very unrefined,” Ida said, with a superior simper.

“Some of ’em even drink strychnine and set themselves on fire,” Mike laughed.

Big Ben set down his knife and fork. “I was raised in the Church of God. Now, we wasn’t the kindto handle snakes or set ourselves afire or nothin’ like that. But we would shout and speak in tongues and