Wedding Bell Blues - [49]

“No, Mama,” Mimi said. “Feed self.”

“Well, okay, grown-up girl.” She handed the spoon over, and Mimi took it into her tiny fist. Mimishoveled away, managing to convey about sixty percent of the food into her mouth. Overall, she wasdoing a better job than Buzz Dobson.

Every day Mimi was getting more independent, learning to do more things for herself, addingmore words to her vocabulary, including some she’d be better off without. Colorful vocabulary or not,Lily was proud of Mimi, and she loved watching her grow and learn. She thought of the other steps Mimiwould be taking in the next year or so — moving from a crib to a bed, learning to use the potty — andhoped she would be there to help her daughter with these difficult milestones.

Mimi reached a dimpled, oatmeal-gooey hand out to touch Lily’s stiff hair. “Funny Mama.”

Lily had to agree. “Yeah, I’m pretty funny looking all right. Are you done with your dinner?”

“All done.”

“Okay, let’s go hose you off, then.”

Mimi grinned, flashing her perfect, white baby teeth. “Baffy?”

“That’s right. Bathy time.”

As Lily watched Mimi splash happily in the tub, she found herself wondering what the Maycombsand their kind thought she would do to damage her daughter. Did they think she was simply raising Mimito recruit her, to train her from the earliest possible age in the rites of Sappho? Such thinking — if it couldeven be called thinking — was ridiculous. As long as Mimi found someone who’d be good to her, Lilydidn’t care whom she grew up to love, male or female. She and Charlotte had decided to have a child tolove, not to recruit.

It was the fundamentalists who recruited. From the time their children were babies, they draggedthem to Sunday school and church for hours on end, indoctrinating them when they were too young toknow what hit them. Maybe this was why fundamentalists always assumed gays and lesbians were raisingtheir children with some kind of agenda in mind; the fundamentalists themselves certainly were.

Lily loved the way Mimi smelled and felt when she was fresh out of the tub. After she got Mimidiapered and dressed, Lily sat down in the nursery’s rocking chair for storytime. Mimi toddled over to herbookshelf. Lily was amused to note that while three of her own picture books were on the shelf, Mimialways avoided them like the plague. Everybody was a critic.

Mimi returned to the rocking chair with Janell Cannon’s beautifully illustrated book Stellaluna.

Lily cuddled her daughter on her lap, opened the book, and began to read.

Stellaluna was the story of a baby fruit bat who gets separated from her mother and so is raised,for a time, by a family of birds. The birds are kind to Stellaluna as long as she exhibits birdlike behavior.

She is not allowed to fly at night or hang upside down, and she is fed insects instead of the mangoes sheloves. While Stellaluna appreciates the birds’ kindness, she is only happy when she is reunited with herfruit bat family.

Lily’s eyes filled as she read the book to Mimi. It was amazing how a simple children’s bookcould say so much. She identified with Stellaluna. A lost fruit bat, she was taken in by the McGillys. Theirkindness was unquestionable, but it was contingent on her pretending to be something she was not. TheMcGillys were her bird family—well-meaning, but different from her — and capable of offering her onlyinsects, not the mangoes she craved.

She tucked Mimi into her crib just as Ben returned with the pizza. After they ate, Lily asked, “Soare you just gonna hang out here tonight?”

“Thought I would. Ken has some god-awful departmental function tonight.”

“So...would it be okay if I went out for a while?”

“Sure. I’ll look after Mimi if she wakes up.”

Lily was up from the table already.

“So where are you going?” Ben asked.

“I’m going out ... to get some mangoes.”

“What do you mean, mangoes? You can’t buy mangoes in Faulkner County”

Lily grabbed her car keys and walked out the door without bothering to explain. There might beno mangoes in Faulkner County, but she did remember something from her breakfast with Jack. Like amango, it was sweet, juicy, and succulent. There were no mangoes in Faulkner County, but there werepeaches.

CHAPTER 17

Jack opened the door of her farmhouse and surveyed the new, prim Lily. “Isn’t it kinda late forJehovah’s Witnesses?”

“Jack, it’s me.”

“Lily? Omigod, what happened to you?”

“The Chatterbox beauty shop happened to me. Can I come in?”

Still slack-jawed, Jack backed away from the door so Lily could enter.

Once the door closed behind her, words started spilling from Lily’s lips faster than she couldcontrol them. “I don’t even know why I came here, really. I just feel so...weird. Before all this shithappened, my outside always matched my inside, but now nothing matches. Buzz Dobson told me itwould improve my chances with the judge if I tried to look respectable, and now when I look at myself inthe mirror I don’t even see me anymore.”

She didn’t realize she was crying until Jack offered her a handkerchief. “I’m scared, Jack. I’m