Wedding Bell Blues - [5]

he had known what the word misogyny meant.

And so it was Mike whom the Maycombs had decided would memorialize Charlotte. It wasfitting, in a perverse way. They never understood her while she was alive. Why should they understandher now that she was dead?

Mike stood at the lectern in his gray three-piece suit (What is it with the gray three-piece suits inthis church? Lily wondered), his ash-blond hair combed over his bald spot. “Charlotte always did lovereading literature and stuff like that,” he began, “so I’ve composed a poem in her honor.”

Dear god, no, Lily thought.

He cleared his throat and began. “It’s called, ‘My Sister’.” He began reading in the sing-songrhythm that the marginally literate feel is integral to poetry:

When I was a boy, God looked down and saw me at my play.

He said, “This boy needs a friend to help him on his way.” That’s why, I think, he saw fit to send you to me—

A little baby sister—as sweet as sweet could be.

I used to stand and watch you as in your crib you laid.

As time went by and you grew some, in the yard we played.

More time went by, and I admit, I was surprised to see

The educated lady that you turned out to be.

Now the Lord has taken you, and as we together pray,

There’s something I have never said that I want to say.

Although I’ve never said it, please know that it is true, When I say these three words, my sister: I...

Then a miracle occurred. Well, the closest thing to a miracle this church would see anyway. AsLily held the suddenly restless Mimi on her lap, she detected warmth and movement emanating from thechild’s diaper. Hallelujah! Lily thought. The child hath pooped! Now I have a socially acceptable reasonto bolt from this debacle of a memorial service.

Just then, Mimi emitted an eardrum-shattering wail. Given the nature of Mike’s poem, Lily wasn’tsure if Mimi was crying because of her soiled diaper or because she was a budding literary critic.

When Lily carried Mimi into the ladies’ room, she was dismayed to discover that it was notequipped with a changing table. Great, she thought, all this talk of family values in this church, and theydon’t even give me a place to change a poopy diaper. She changed Mimi awkwardly on the counter, andthen noticed that the large mirror above the counter protruded two or three inches from the wall. Insteadof throwing the dirty diaper into the trash like a good girl, she slam-dunked it so it wedged between themirror and the wall. By tomorrow morning’s service, that diaper would be stinking up the place prettygood, and they’d go nuts trying to figure out where the smell was coming from.

Lily reentered the sanctuary just in time to hear the rev suggest that they all join in singing “HowGreat Thou Art,” since it had been “one of Charlotte’s favorites.” To the best of Lily’s memory,Charlotte’s favorite song had been Patti Smith’s version of “Gloria.”

As soon as the service was over, Ida made a bee-line for Lily. “There’s my little precious!” shesquealed at Mimi. “There’s Grandma’s little angel!”

“Gamma!” Mimi sprang into Ida’s arms, and Ida carried her away without even acknowledgingLily’s presence.

Lily watched as Ida showed Mimi off to her church friends. As she watched the bald men andshampooed-and-set women coo over her daughter, Lily was reminded of that scene in Rosemary’s Babywhere Rosemary discovers all the wrinkled old Satanists keeping watch over her baby’s black bassinet.

Five minutes, she thought. They can fuss over Mimi for exactly five minutes, but then we’ve got to getout of here before I turn into a pumpkin or a pillar of salt or something.

She watched the seconds tick by on her Timex, gnawed her already nubby fingernails, and thoughthow much Charlotte would have hated this whole thing. As she approached Ida and one of her church-lady friends, she heard the friend say, “Cremated? Really? Well, of course, I would just never feel rightabout being cremated, but Charlotte always was” —she stiffened when she saw Lily — “different.”

“Mama!” Mimi called when she saw Lily. Lily was sure it wasn’t her imagination that both Idaand her sour-faced friend cringed.

“I guess we’d better be taking off,” Lily said.

“Ooh, can’t this precious angel stay with her grandma just a few teeny-weeny minutes?”

Great, make me the bad guy, Lily thought. “Well, it is getting to be her dinnertime ...”

“Oh, all right,” Ida sighed, careful to hand over Mimi without making any physical contact withLily —wouldn’t want to catch those lesbian cooties. “But I think the boys had something they wanted totalk to you about before you left.” She looked around in that desperate, dithering way she had, calling,

“Charles! Mike! Lily’s leaving!”

Charles and Mike appeared at her side. Charles nodded at Lily and said, “We’ll walk you to yourcar.”

Walking to the car with a large, gray-suited man on either side of her, Lily felt like she was in oneof those scenes in a movie in which the mobsters politely escort their victim to a car with the destinationof a deserted warehouse where no one can hear the screams.