Big Cherry Holler - Adriana Trigiani [4]
“Let’s not ruin Etta’s night,” I say to his back. Jack turns around and looks at me as though I’m a stranger; it sends a chill through me. He straightens his shoulders and says, “Let’s not.”
The day we have dreaded has come. My husband is out of work. But it’s worse than that; Jack’s identity and heritage is tied to the coal in these hills in a deeply personal way. The MacChesneys have been coal miners for as far back as anyone can remember. My husband is a proud miner: a union man who worked his way up from a pumper to chief roof bolter. Some say it’s the most dangerous job in the mine. Now what will he do? What kind of work can my husband find at his age? He has no degree. How are we going to make it? I only work three days a week at the Pharmacy. We count on his benefits. Sure, we own the house, but it doesn’t run on air. I wish we didn’t have this show tonight, or all these people coming. Why do I always have to make an event out of everything? I had to arrange the van, fill it with friends, make sandwiches. I couldn’t let it be just the three of us.
Iva Lou Wade Makin pulls up and parks across the street. Her glorious blond bouffant is protected by a white polka-dot rain cap with a peak so pointy, it makes her seem medieval. Actually, Iva Lou looks more like the state bird as she puddle-hops across Shawnee Avenue. Her lips, her shoes, and her raincoat are ruby red. She hoists herself into the van (hips first) with a Jean Harlow grin. Her gold bangle bracelets jingle as she lifts the rain cap off her head.
“Whoo. That storm is a bitch.” Iva Lou turns to Etta. “Now, don’t use that word ‘bitch,’ hon. It’s a grown-up word.”
“Thanks for the clarification.” I give Iva Lou a look.
“Nellie Goodloe ain’t coming. She’s gonna watch the show with the Methodist Sewing Circle at the Carry-Out.”
“Is Aunt Fleeta coming?” Etta asks.
“I saw her at the Pharmacy. I got the last rain bonnet. She’ll be along presently.”
Etta’s teacher (and mine way back when), Grace White, a petite lady of almost seventy, holds an umbrella over Jane and Billy, dressed for television in their Sunday finest. Jack gets out and helps them into the van.
“Jane, we got corsages!” Etta squeals. “Billy, you got a carnation.”
“Okay,” Billy says, less than enthused.
Fleeta Mullins’s old gray Cadillac with one bashed fin pulls up next to the Jeep. She barrels out of it quickly, tossing off the butt of a cigarette. Fleeta is small, and she’s shrinking; smoking has ruined her bones. I try to get her to take calcium; I’m sure she has osteoporosis. She’s still a nimble thing, though. Fleeta leaps up into the van after Iva Lou pulls open the door for her, then wedges into the middle seat next to Mrs. White, bringing a waft of tobacco and Windsong cologne with her. “I had me a line at the register, and folks was surly. Pearl Grimes needs to hire more help over to the Pharmacy,” she announces over her foggy reading glasses. I shrug. I am not the boss, haven’t been for almost ten years. But old habits die hard with Fleeta.
“No problem. We’re right on schedule,” Mrs. White promises.
“Pearl made peanut-butter balls.” Fleeta gives me the tin. The kids beg for them, but I tell them, “After the show. Okay? We don’t need your winning answers sticking to the roofs of your mouths.”
As the kids chatter, Fleeta sticks her head between Jack and me. “I done heard. Westmoreland’s out.”
“Don’t say anything, Fleets. The kids,” Jack says to her quietly.
“Right. Right. I got me half a mind to get on the bus to Pittsburgh and go meet them company men myself and tell ’em to go straight to hell. After all we done for ’em. Sixty years of profit on the backs of our men, and now they’re just gonna pack up and clear out.” Fleeta grunts and sits back in her seat.
As we drive out of our mountains and into the hills of East Tennessee, Billy regales us with the capitals of all fifty states in alphabetical order. Jane divides fractions aloud. Etta squeezes into my seat with me and faces her father.
“Are y’all mad?”
“No,” Jack and I say together, looking straight ahead.
“Then what’s