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By Root 1749 0

lived there in a previous incarnation. It never occurred to her that “Tara” was only a movie set or that her recently acquired southern accent was only a poor imitation of an English girl doing a poor imitation of a southern accent. The only real southerner in town was a seventy-eight-year-old widow lady named Mrs. Mary Frances Samples, born in Huntsville, Alabama. She too had been adversely affected by the movie. As if losing the War Between the States was not bad enough, she had been completely devastated when it was announced that Tallulah Bankhead, a true daughter of the South and a fellow Alabamian, had not been cast as Scarlett O’Hara. Mary Frances Samples vowed never to see another movie as long as she lived. She said her only consolation was that “at least the role did not go to a Yankee girl.”

Mrs. Samples aside, Ida was bound and determined that her daughter, Norma, was going off to college in the Deep South. It might be too late for Ida to fulfill her rightful destiny as a daughter of the Confederacy, but she secretly envisioned herself in her later years visiting Norma and sitting on the veranda of her large plantation home in Virginia, being waited on hand and foot. A vision Norma did not share. All she ever wanted to do was marry Macky Warren and settle down in Elmwood Springs and start a family. Norma and Macky had been girlfriend and boyfriend since the seventh grade. And on the night of the senior prom, when he gave her an engagement ring, nobody was surprised. But Ida was at once adamantly against it. In fact would not hear of it. “I like Macky,” she said, “but no daughter of mine is marrying a little small-town hardware-store owner’s son.”

“I will, too!” said Norma.

“Over my dead body,” said Ida. “Besides, you are not marrying anybody until you finish college.”

Norma looked to her father for help but he had not stood up to his wife in years. Doomed! For a while Norma and Macky became the local Romeo and Juliet. Everybody took sides. Ida on one side and everybody else on the other.

Living so far out in the country, Norma’s aunt Elner had not been aware of the tragedy of her niece and her boyfriend until one afternoon when the two drove out to see her. Norma was miserable and teary and Macky just sat stoically, trying to be brave. “Aunt Elner, if she makes me go to that stupid college and leave Macky here alone, I swear I’ll just kill myself. She’s going to make us waste four years of our lives because of some whim.”

Macky looked at Norma. “I’d go with her if I could but I can’t with my daddy being so sick—I’ve got to stay here and help him run the store.” Then he looked over at Elner and asked earnestly, “Mrs. Shimfissle, what would you think if we were to elope? Would you be willing to come with us?”

Elner was taken aback at this request. “Oh no, Macky, you don’t want to do that. Just give it a little while longer, I’m sure she’ll come around.”

“What if she doesn’t?” asked Norma.

“I believe she will. But let’s just hold our horses and wait and then we’ll figure out what to do from there.”

After they left, Elner stood in the yard and smiled and waved good-bye until they were out of sight. Then she went inside and picked up the phone.

“Ida, this is your sister. Now, what’s all this mess about you not letting Norma marry the Warren boy?”

“I didn’t say she couldn’t marry him, Elner. I just said not now.”

“Why not now?”

“Because I want her to go to college first, where she will get an education and at least have a chance to meet boys from the nicer families. I know she doesn’t think so now but in the long run I know she will be happier and better off if she at least dates a boy from her own kind . . . maybe someone from a fine old southern family with a similar—”

Elner, not letting her finish, snapped, “Oh, Ida Mae, give it up. You are not from some fine old southern family. Your grandfather was a German pig farmer from Pennsylvania and everybody knows it. Up to now, Gerta and I have always babied you and let you carry on with all your silly little airs because we thought it was cute but I can