Shakespeare’s Christmas

Chapter One

My situation was as surreal as one of those slo-mo nightmares Hollywood uses to pad B movies.

I was sitting in the bed of a moving Dodge Ram pickup. I was enthroned on a wobbly plastic lawn chair, thinly disguised by a red plush couch throw edged with fringe. A crowd lined both sides of the street, waving and yelling. From time to time, I dipped my hand into the white plastic bucket settled on my lap, coming up with a fistful of candy to pitch to the spectators.

Though I was clothed, which I understand is not the case in many dreams, my clothes were hardly typical. I was wearing a red Santa hat with a big white ball on the end, bright new green sweats, and I had a disgusting artificial holly corsage pinned to my chest. I was trying to smile.

Spotting a familiar face in the crowd, a face pasted with an unconcealed smirk, I pitched the next peppermint with deliberate accuracy. It smacked my neighbor, Carlton Cockroft, right in the middle of the chest, wiping off that smirk for at least a second.

The pickup paused, continuing a familiar and irritating pattern that had begun minutes after the parade had started lurching down Main Street. One of the bands ahead of us had stopped to blare out a Christmas song, and I had to smile and wave at the same damn people over and over until the song was finished.

My face hurt.

At least in the green sweats, with a layer of thermal underwear underneath, I was fairly warm, which was more than I could say for the girls who had enthusiastically agreed to ride on the Body Time float directly ahead. They also were wearing Santa hats, but below the hats they wore only scanty exercise outfits, since at their age making an impact was more important than staying comfortable and healthy.

“How you doing back there?” Raphael Roundtree called, leaning out of the pickup window to give me an inquiring glance.

I glared back at him. Raphael was wearing a coat, scarf, and gloves, and the heat in the cab of the truck was turned on full blast. His round brown face looked plain old smug.

“Just fine,” I said ferociously.

“Lily, Lily, Lily,” he said, shaking his head. “Slap that smile back on, girl. You’re gonna scare customers away, rather than pick some up.”

I cast my gaze to heaven to indicate I was asking for patience. But instead of a clear gray sky, I found myself staring at tacky fake greenery strung across the street. Everywhere I looked, the trappings of the season had taken over. Shakespeare doesn’t have a lot of money for Christmas decorations, so I’d seen the same ones every holiday in the four-plus years I’d spent in this little Arkansas town. Every alternate streetlight had a big candle suspended on a curved “candleholder.” The other streetlights sported bells.

The town’s seasonal centerpiece (since the manger scene had to be removed) was a huge Christmas tree on the courthouse lawn; the churches sponsored a big public party to decorate it. In consequence, it looked very homey rather than elegant-typical of Shakespeare, come to think of it. Once we passed the courthouse, the parade would be nearly over.

There was a little tree in the pickup bed with me, but it was artificial. I’d decorated it with gold stiffened ribbon, gold ornaments, and gold and white artificial flowers. A discreet sign attached to it read, tree decorating done by appointment. Businesses and homes. This new service I was providing was definitely designed for people who’d opted for elegance.

The banners on the sides of the pickup read, Shakespeare’s cleaning and errands, followed by my phone number. Since Carlton, my accountant, had advised it so strongly, I had finally made myself a business. Carlton further advised me to begin to establish a public presence, very much against my own inclinations.

So here I was in the damn Christmas parade.

“Smile!” called Janet Shook, who was marching in place right behind the pickup. She made a face at me, then turned to the forty or so kids following her and said, “Okay, kids! Let’s Shakespearecise!” The children, amazingly, did not throw up, maybe because none of them was over ten. They all attended the town-sponsored “Safe After School” program that employed Janet, and they seemed happy to obey her. They all began to do jumping jacks.

I envied them. Despite my insulation, sitting still was taking its toll. Though Shakespeare has very mild winters as a rule, today was the coldest temperature for Christmas parade day in seven years, the local radio station had informed us.

Janet’s kids looked red-cheeked and sparkly eyed, and so did Janet. The jumping jacks had turned into a kind of dance. At least, I guessed it was. I am not exactly tuned in to popular culture.

I was still stretching my lips up to smile at the surrounding faces, but it was a real strain. Relief overwhelmed me as the truck began moving again. I started tossing candy and waving.

This was hell. But unlike hell, it was finite. Eventually, the candy bucket was empty and the parade had reached its endpoint, the parking lot of Superette Grocery. Raphael and his oldest son helped me take the tree back to the travel agent’s office for whom I’d decorated it, and they carted the plastic chair back to their own backyard. I’d thanked Raphael and paid him for his gas and time, though he’d protested.

“It was worth it just to see you smile that long. Your face is gonna be sore tomorrow,” Raphael said gleefully.

What became of the red plush throw I don’t know and don’t want to know.

Jack was not exactly sympathetic when he called me from Little Rock that night. In fact, he laughed.

“Did anyone film this parade?” he asked, gasping with the end convulsions of his mirth.

“I hope not.”

“Come on, Lily, loosen up,” he said. I could still hear the humor in his voice. “What are you doing this holiday?”

This seemed like a touchy question to me. Jack Leeds and I had been seeing each other for about seven weeks. We were too new to take it for granted that we’d be spending Christmas together, and too unsure to have had any frank discussion about making arrangements.

“I have to go home,” I said flatly. “To Bartley.”

A long silence.

“How do you feel about that?” Jack asked cautiously.

I steeled myself to be honest. Frank. Open. “I have to go to my sister Varena’s wedding. I’m a bridesmaid.”

Now he didn’t laugh.

“How long has it been since you saw your folks?” he asked.

It was strange that I didn’t know the answer. “I guess maybe… six months? Eight? I met them in Little Rock one day… around Easter. It’s years since I’ve seen Varena.”

“And you don’t want to go now?”

“No,” I said, relieved to be able to speak the truth. When I’d been arranging my week off work, after my employers got over the shock of my asking, they’d been almost universally delighted to hear that I was going to my sister’s wedding. They couldn’t tell me fast enough that it was fine for me to miss a week. They’d asked about my sister’s age (twenty-eight, younger than me by three years), her fiancй (a pharmacist, widowed, with a little daughter), and what I was going to wear in the wedding. (I didn’t know. I’d sent Varena some money and my size when she said she’d settled on bridesmaids’ dresses, but I hadn’t seen her selection.)

“So when can I see you?” Jack asked.

I felt a warm trickle of relief. I was never sure what was going to happen next with us. It seemed possible to me that someday Jack wouldn’t call at all.

“I’ll be in Bartley all the week before Christmas,” I said. “I was planning on getting back to my house by Christmas Day.”

“Miss having Christmas at home?” I could feel Jack’s surprise echoing over the telephone line.

“I will be home-here-for Christmas,” I said sharply. “What about you?”

“I don’t have any plans. My brother and his wife asked me, but they didn’t sound real sincere, if you know what I mean.” Jack’s parents had both died within the past four years.

“You want to come here?” My face tensed with anxiety as I waited to hear his answer.

“Sure,” he said, and his voice was so gentle I knew he could tell how much it had cost me to ask. “Will you put up mistletoe? Everywhere?”

“Maybe,” I said, trying not to sound as relieved as I was, or as happy as I felt. I bit my lip, suppressing a lot of things. “Do you want have a real Christmas dinner?”

“Turkey?” he said hopefully. “Cornbread dressing?”

“I can do that.”

“Cranberry sauce?”

“I can do that.”

“English peas?”

“Spinach Madeleine,” I countered.

“Sounds good. What can I bring?”

“Wine.” I seldom drank alcohol, but I thought with Jack around a drink or two might be all right.

“OK. If you think of anything else, give me a call. I’ve got some work to finish up here within the next week, then I have a meeting about a job I might take on. So I may not get down there until Christmas.”

“Actually, I have a lot to do right now, too. Everyone’s trying to get extra cleaning done, giving Christmas parties, putting up trees in their offices.”

It was just over three weeks until Christmas. That was a long time to spend without seeing Jack. Even though I knew I was going to be working hard the entire period, since I counted going home to the wedding as a sort of subcategory of work, I felt a sharp pang at the thought of three weeks’ separation.

“That seems like a long time,” he said suddenly.

“Yes.”

Having admitted that, both of us backed hastily away.

“Well, I’ll be calling you,” Jack said briskly.

He’d be sprawled on the couch in his apartment in Little Rock as he talked on the phone. His thick dark hair would be pulled back in a ponytail. The cold weather would have made the scar on his face stand out, thin and white, a little puckered where it began at the hairline close to his right eye. If Jack had met with a client today, he’d be wearing nice slacks and a sports coat, wing tips, a dress shirt, and a tie. If he’d been working surveillance, or doing the computer work that increasingly formed the bulk of a private detective’s routine, he’d be in jeans and a sweater.

“What are you wearing?” I asked suddenly.

“I thought I was supposed to ask you that.” He sounded amused, again.

I kept a stubborn silence.

“Oh, OK. I’m wearing-you want me to start with the bottom or the top?-Reeboks, white athletic socks, navy blue sweatpants, Jockeys, and a Marvel Gym T-shirt. I just got home from working out.”

“Dress up at Christmas.”

“A suit?”

“Oh, maybe you don’t have to go that far. But nice.”

“OK,” he said cautiously.

Christmas this year was on a Friday. I had only two Saturday clients at the moment, and neither of them would be open the day after Christmas. Maybe I could get them done on Christmas morning, before Jack got here.

“Bring clothes for two days,” I said. “We can have Friday afternoon and Saturday and Sunday.” I suddenly realized I’d assumed, and I took a sharp breath. “That is, if you can stay that long. If you want to.”

“Oh, yes,” he said. His voice sounded rougher, darker. “Yes, I want to.”

“Are you smiling?”

“You could say so,” he affirmed. “All over.”

I smiled a little myself. “OK, see you then.”

“Where’d you say your family was? Bartley, right? I was talking to a friend of mine about that a couple of nights ago.”

It felt strange to know he had talked about me. “Yes, Bartley. It’s in the Delta, a little north and a lot east of Little Rock.”

“Hmmm. It’ll be OK, seeing your family. You can tell me all about it.”

“OK.” That did sound good, realizing I could talk about it afterward, that I wouldn’t come home to silence and emptiness, drag through days and days rehashing the tensions in my family.

Instead of saying this to Jack, I said, “Good-bye.”

I heard him respond as I laid the receiver down. We always had a hard time ending conversations.

There are two towns in Arkansas named Montrose. The next day, I drove to the one that had shopping.

Since I no longer worked for the Winthrops, I had more free time on my hands than I could afford: That was the only reason I’d listened when Carlton had proposed the Christmas parade appearance. Until more people opted for my services, I had just about two free mornings a week. This free morning, I’d gone to Body Time for my workout (it was triceps day), come home to shower and dress, and stopped by the office of the little Shakespeare paper to place an ad in the classifieds (“Give your wife her secret Christmas wish-a maid”).

And now here I was, involuntarily listening-once again-to taped Christmas carols, surrounded by people who were shopping with some air of excitement and anticipation. I was about to do what I like least to do: spend money when I had little coming in, and spend that money on clothing.

In what I thought of as my previous life, the life I’d led in Memphis as scheduler for a large cleaning service, I’d been quite a dresser. In that life, I’d had long brown hair, and lifting two twenty-pound dumbbells had made my arms tremble. I’d also been naive beyond belief. I had believed that all women were sisters under the skin, and that underneath all the crap, men were basically decent and honest.

I made an involuntary sound of disgust at the memory, and the white-haired lady sitting on the bench a yard away said, “Yes, it is a little overwhelming after a month and more, isn’t it?”

I turned to look at her. Short and stout, she had chosen to wear a Christmas sweatshirt with reindeer on it and green slacks. Her shoes could have been advertised as “comfort-plus walkers.” She smiled at me. She was alone like I was, and she had more to say.

“They start the selling season so early, and the stores put up the decorations almost before they clear the Halloween stuff away! Takes you right out of the mood, doesn’t it!”

“Yes,” I agreed. I swung back to glance in the window, seeing my reflection… checking. Yes, I was Lily, the newer version, short blond hair, muscles like hard elastic bands, wary and alert. Strangers generally tended to address their remarks to someone else.

“It’s a shame about Christmas,” I told the old woman and walked away.

I pulled the list out of my purse. It would never be shorter unless I could mark something off by making a purchase. My mother had very carefully written down all the social events included in my sister’s prewedding buildup and starred all the ones I was absolutely required to attend. She had included notes on what I should wear, in case I’d forgotten what was appropriate for Bartley society.

Unspoken in the letter, though I could read the words in invisible ink, was the plea that I honor my sister by wearing suitable clothes and making an effort to be “social.”

I was a grown woman, thirty-one. I was not childish enough, or crazy enough, to cause Varena and my parents distress by inappropriate clothing and behavior.

But as I went into the best department store in the mall, as I stared over the racks and racks of clothing, I found myself completely at a loss. There were too many choices for a woman who’d simplified her life down to the bone. A saleswoman asked if she could help me, and I shook my head.

This paralysis was humiliating. I prodded my brain. I could do this. I should get…

“Lily,” said a warm, deep voice.

I followed it up, and up, to the face of my friend Bobo Winthrop. Bobo’s face had lost the element of boy that had made it sweet. He was a nineteen-year-old man.

Without a thought, I put my arms around him. The last time I’d seen Bobo, he’d been involved in a family tragedy that had torn the Winthrop clan in two. He’d transferred to a college out of state, somewhere in Florida. He looked as if he’d made the most of it. He was tan, had apparently lost a little weight.

He hugged me back even more eagerly. Then as I leaned back to look at him again, he kissed me, but he was wise enough to break it off before it became an issue.

“Are you out of school for the holidays?” I asked.

“Yes, and after that I’ll start back here at U of A.” The University of Arkansas had a large campus at Montrose, though some of the Shakespeare kids preferred the biggest establishment in Fayetteville, or the Little Rock branch.

We looked at each other, in silent agreement not to discuss the reasons Bobo had left the state for a while.

“What are you doing today, Lily? Not at work?”

“No,” I answered shortly, hoping he wouldn’t ask me to spell out the fact that his mother no longer employed me, and as a result, I’d lost a couple of other clients.

He gave me a look that I could only characterize as assessing. “And you’re here shopping?”

“My sister’s getting married. I have to go home for the wedding and the prewedding parties.”

“So, you’re here to get something to wear.” Bobo eyed me a minute more. “And you don’t like to shop.”

“Right,” I said disconsolately.

“Got to go to a shower?”

“I have a list,” I told him, aware of how bleak my voice sounded.

“Let’s see.”

I handed him the sheet of stationery.

“A shower… two showers. A dinner. Then the rehearsal dinner. The wedding. You’ll be a bridesmaid?”

I nodded.

“So she’s got your dress for that?”

I nodded again.

“So, what do you need?”

“I have a nice black suit,” I said.

Bobo looked expectantly at me.

“That’s it.”

“Oh, wow, Lily,” he said, suddenly sounding his age. “Do you ever have shopping to do.”

That evening I spread out my purchases on the bed. I’d had to use my charge card, but everything I’d gotten I could use for a long time.

A pair of well-cut black slacks. For one shower, I’d wear them with a gold satin vest and an off-white silk blouse. For the second, I’d wear them with an electric blue silk shell and a black jacket. I could wear the shoes that went with the black suit, or a pair of blue leather pumps that had been on sale. I could wear my good black suit to the rehearsal dinner. For the dinner party I had a white dress, sleeveless, that I could wear in the winter with the black jacket, in the summer by itself. I had the correct underpinnings for each outfit, and I had bought a pair of gold hoop earrings and a big gold free-form pin. I already had diamond earrings and a diamond bar pin my grandmother had left me.

This was all thanks to Bobo’s advice.

“You must have read some of Amber Jean’s girls’ magazines,” I had accused him. Bobo had a younger sister.

“Nah. That’s the only shopping wisdom I have to offer. ‘Everything has to match or coordinate.’ I guess I learned it from my mom. She has whole sections of clothes that can be mixed and matched.”

I should have remembered that. I used to clean out Beanie Winthrop’s closet twice a year.

“Are you living at home?” I had asked when he’d turned to go. I was a little hesitant about asking Bobo any questions that might pertain to his family, so strained was the Winthrop situation.

“No. I have an apartment here. On Chert Avenue. I just moved in, to be ready for the spring semester.” Bobo had flushed, for the first time looking awkward. “I’m trying to spend some time at home, so my folks don’t feel too… ditched.” He’d run his fingers through his floppy blond hair. “How’ve you been doing? You still seeing that private detective?”

“Yeah.”

“Still working out?” he’d added hastily, getting off dangerous ground.

I’d nodded.

He’d hugged me again and gone about whatever his errand was, leaving me to a saleswoman named Marianna. She’d homed in on us when Bobo had joined me, and now that he had left, she was stuck with me.

After I’d gotten over the sticker shock, it felt almost good to have new clothes. I cut off the tags and hung all the new things in the closet in the guest bedroom, spacing the hangers so the clothes wouldn’t wrinkle. Days afterward, I found myself looking at them from time to time, opening the door suspiciously as if my new garments might have gone back to the store.

I’d always been very careful with makeup, with my hair; I keep my legs shaved as smooth as a baby’s bottom. I like to know what I look like; I like to control it. But I don’t want people to turn to look at me, I don’t want people to notice me. The jeans and sweats I wore to clean houses, to bathe dogs, to fill some shut-in’s grocery list, acted as camouflage. Practical, cheap, camouflage.

People would look at me when I wore my new clothes.

Made uneasy by all these changes, by the prospect of going back to Bartley, I plunged myself into what work I had. I still cleaned Carrie Thrush’s office every Saturday, and Carrie had mentioned she wanted me to come more often, but I had to be sure it wasn’t because she thought I was hurting financially. Pity shouldn’t have any part in a business arrangement, or a friendship.

I had the Drinkwaters’ house, and the travel agent’s office, and Dr. Sizemore’s office. I still cleaned Deedra Dean’s apartment, and I was working more hours for Mrs. Rossiter, who had broken her arm while she was walking Durwood, her old cocker spaniel. But it wasn’t enough.

I did get the job of decorating two more office Christmas trees, and I did a good job on one and an outstanding job on the other, which was a very visible advertisement since it stood in the Chamber of Commerce office. I used birds and fruit for that one, and the warm, hushed colors and carefully concealed lights made the tree a little more peaceful than some of the others I saw around town.

I’d quit taking the Little Rock newspaper to cut back on expenses until my client list built up. So I was in Dr. Sizemore’s office, on a Tuesday afternoon, when I saw the creased section from one of the Sunday editions. I scooped it up to dump into the recycle bin, and my gaze happened to land on the headline “Unsolved Crimes Mean No Happy Holiday.” The paper was dated two days after Thanksgiving, which told me that one of the office staff had stuffed it somewhere and then unearthed it in her pre-Christmas cleaning.

I sank down onto the edge of one of the waiting room chairs to read the first three paragraphs.

In the yearly effort to pack as many holiday-related stories as possible into the paper, the Arkansas Democrat Gazette had interviewed the families of people who had been murdered (if the murder was unsolved) or abducted (if the abductee hadn’t been found).

I wouldn’t have continued to read the article, since it’s just the kind of thing that brings back too many bad memories, if it hadn’t been for the picture of the baby.

The cutline under the picture read, “Summer Dawn Macklesby at the time of her disappearance. Summer has been missing for almost eight years.”

She was a tiny infant in the picture, perhaps a week old. She had a little lace bow attached somehow to a scanty strand of hair.

Though I knew it would make me miserable, I found myself searching for the child’s name again, in the column of text. It jumped out at me about halfway through the story, past the mother of three who’d been gunned down at an automated teller on Christmas Eve and the engaged convenience store clerk raped and knifed to death on her Thanksgiving birthday.

“Eight years ago this week, Summer Dawn Macklesby was snatched from her infant seat on her parents’ enclosed front porch in suburban Conway,” the sentence began. “Teresa Macklesby, preparing for a shopping expedition, left her infant daughter on the porch while she stepped back into the house to retrieve a package she intended to mail before Christmas. While she was in the house, the telephone rang, and though Macklesby is sure she was absent from the porch no longer than five minutes, by the time she returned Summer Dawn had vanished.”

I closed my eyes. I folded the paper so I couldn’t read the rest of the story and carried it to the recycle bin and dumped it in as if it were contaminated with the grief and agony implied in that one partial story.

That night I had to walk.

Some nights sleep played a cheap trick on me and hid. Those nights, no matter how tired I was, no matter what energy I needed for the day to come, I had to walk. Though these episodes were less frequent than even a year ago, they still occurred perhaps once every two weeks.

Sometimes I made sure nobody saw me. Sometimes I strode down the middle of the street. My thoughts were seldom pleasant on walking nights, and yet my mind could not be at peace any more than my body.

I haven’t ever understood it.

After all, as I often tell myself, the Bad Thing has already happened. I do not need to fear anymore.

Doesn’t everyone wait for the Bad Thing? Every woman I’ve ever known does. Maybe men have a Bad Thing, too, and they don’t admit it. A woman’s Bad Thing, of course, is being abducted, raped, and knifed; left bleeding, an object of revulsion and pity to those who find her, be she dead or alive.

Well, that had happened to me.

Since I had never been a mother, I had never had to imagine any other disasters. But tonight I thought maybe there was a Worse Thing. The Worse Thing would be having your child taken. The Worse Thing would be years of imagining that child’s bones lying in the mud in some ditch, or your child alive and being molested methodically by some monster.

Not knowing.

Thanks to that glimpse of newspaper, I was imagining that now.

I hoped Summer Dawn Macklesby was dead. I hoped she had died within an hour of her abduction. I hoped for that hour she had been unconscious. As I walked and walked in the cold night, that seemed to me to be the best-case scenario.

Of course, it was possible that some loving couple who desperately wanted a little girl had just picked up Summer Dawn and had bought her everything her heart desired and enrolled her in an excellent school and were doing a great job of raising her.

But I didn’t believe that stories like Summer Dawn Macklesby’s could have a happy ending, just like I didn’t believe that all people are basically good. I didn’t believe that God gave you compensation for your griefs. I didn’t believe that when one door closes, another opens.

I believed that was crap.

I was going to miss some karate classes while I was in Bartley. And the gym would be closed for Christmas Eve, Christmas, and the day after. Maybe I could do calisthenics in my room to compensate? And my sore shoulder could use a rest. So as I packed my bag to leave, I tried not to grumble any more than I already had. I had to make this visit, had to do it with grace.

As I drove to Bartley, which was about a three-hour journey east and a little north from Shakespeare, I tried to drum up some sort of pleasurable anticipation about the coming visit.

It would have been more straightforward if I hated my parents. I loved them.

It was in no way their fault that my abduction, rape, and mutilation had made such a media roar that my life, and theirs, had changed even more than was inevitable.

And it was in no way their fault that no one I’d grown up with seemed to be able to treat me as a normal person, after that second, public, rape in the spotlight of the press and the TV cameras.

Nor was it my parents’ fault that my boyfriend of two years had quit seeing me after the press turned their attention away from him.

None of it was their fault-or mine-but it had permanently altered the relationships between us. My mother and father couldn’t look at me without thinking of what had happened to me. They couldn’t talk to me without it coloring the most commonplace conversation. My only sibling, Varena, who had always been more relaxed and elastic than I had, had never been able to understand why I didn’t recover more swiftly and get on with my life as it had been before; and my parents didn’t know how to get in contact with the woman I’d become.

Weary of scrambling through this emotional equivalent of a hamster exercise wheel, I was nearly glad to see the outskirts of Bartley-the poor rickety homes and marginal businesses that blotch the approach to most small towns.

Then I was rolling past the filling station where my parents gassed their cars; past the dry cleaner where Mother took their coats; past the Presbyterian church they’d attended all their lives, where they’d been baptized, married, christened their daughters, from which they would be buried.

I turned down the familiar street. On the next block, the house I grew up in was wearing its winter coat. The rosebushes had been trimmed back. The smooth grass of the big yard was pale after the frost. The house sat in the middle of the large lot, surrounded by my father’s rose beds. A huge Christmas wreath made from twined grapevines and little gold toy trumpets hung on the front door, and the decorated tree was visible in the big picture window in the living room. Mom and Dad had repainted the house when Varena and Dill got engaged, so it was gleaming white for the wedding festivities.

I parked to the side of the driveway on a concrete apron my parents had poured when Varena and I began driving. We’d had friends over all the time, and my folks got tired of their own vehicles getting blocked in.

I eased out of my car and looked at the house for a long moment, stretching my legs after the drive. It had seemed so big when I’d lived in it. I had always felt so lucky to grow up in this house.

Now I saw a fairly typical built-in-the-fifties house, with a double garage, a living room, a den, a big kitchen, a dining room, and three bedrooms, two baths.

There was a workroom at the back of the garage for my father-not that he ever did anything in it, but men needed a workroom. Just like there was a sewing machine in the corner of my parents’ bedroom, because a woman ought to have a sewing machine-not that my mother ever sewed more than a ripped seam. And we Bards had a full complement of family silver-not that we ever ate with it. Someday, in the course of time, Varena and I would divide that silver between us, and the care of it would be on our shoulders; that heavy, ornate silver that was too fine and too much trouble to use.

I got my suitcase and my hanging bag out of the backseat and went up to the front door. My feet felt heavier with every step.

I was home.

Varena answered the door, and we gave each other a quick look of assessment and a tentative hug.

Varena was looking good.

I had been the prettier when we were girls. My eyes are bluer, my nose is straighter, my lips are fuller. But that doesn’t have much meaning for me anymore. I think it still matters very much to Varena. Her hair is long and naturally a redder brown than mine had been. She wears blue contacts, which intensify her eye color to an almost bizarre extent. Her nose turns up a little, and she is about two inches shorter, with bigger breasts and a bigger bottom.

“How is the wedding process?” I asked.

She widened her eyes and made her hands tremble. On edge.

Beyond her, I could see the tables that had been set up to accommodate the presents.

“Wow,” I said, shaking my head in acknowledgment of the sight. There were three long tables (I was sure my folks had borrowed them from the church) draped in gleaming white tablecloths, and every inch was covered with consumer goods. Wineglasses, cloth napkins and tablecloths, china, silver-more silver-vases, letter openers, picture albums, knives and cutting boards, toasters, blankets…

“People are being so sweet,” Varena said, and I could tell that was her stock response; not that she didn’t mean it, but I was sure she’d said that over and over and over to visitors.

“Well, no one’s ever had to spend anything on us, have they?” I observed, raising my eyebrows. Neither Varena or I had ever been married, unlike some in our high school circles who’d been divorced twice by now.

My mother came into the living room from the den. She was pale, but then she always is, like me. Varena likes to tan, and my father does inevitably; he’d rather be out working in the yard than almost anything.

“Oh, sugar!” my mother said and folded me to her. My mother is shorter than me, bone-thin, and her hair is such a faded blond it’s almost white. Her eyes are blue like every member of our family’s, but their color seems to have faded in the past five or six years. She’s never had to wear glasses, her hearing is excellent, and she beat breast cancer ten years ago. She doesn’t wear clothes that are at all trendy or fashionable, but she never looks frumpy, either.

The months, the years, seemed to dissolve. It felt like I’d seen them yesterday.

“Where’s Dad?” I asked.

“He’s gone down to the church to get another table,” Varena explained, trying not to smile too broadly. My mother suppressed the curve of her own lips.

“Is he rolling in this wedding stuff?”

“You know it,” Varena said. “He just loves it. He’s been waiting for this for years.”

“This’ll be the wedding of the decade in Bartley,” I said.

“Well,” Varena began, as we all started down the hall to my old room, “if Mrs. Kingery can get here, it may be.” Her voice sounded a little whiny, a bit flat, as though this worry or complaint were so long-standing she’d worn out the emotion behind it.

“Dill’s mother may not come?” I asked, incredulous. “So, she’s really old and sick… or what?”

My mother sighed. “We can’t quite decide what the problem is,” she explained. She stared off into the distance for a moment, as if the clue to Varena’s future mother-in-law’s behavior was written on the lawn outside the window.

Varena had taken my hanging bag and opened the closet to hook the hangers over the rod. I put my suitcase on the triple dresser that had been my pride and joy at age sixteen. Varena looked back at me over her shoulder.

“I think,” she said, “that maybe Mrs. Kingery was just so crazy about Dill’s first wife that she hates to see her replaced. You know, with Anna being their child, and all.”

“Seems to me like she’d be glad that Anna’s going to have such a good stepmother,” I said, though in truth, I’d never thought what kind of stepmother Varena would make.

“That would be the sensible attitude.” My mother sighed. “I just don’t know, and you can’t ask point-blank.”

I could. But I knew they wouldn’t want me to.

“She’ll have to come to the rehearsal, right?”

My mother and my sister looked anxiously at each other.

“We think she will,” Varena said. “But Dill can’t seem to tell me what that woman will do.”

Dill (Dillard) Kingery’s mother was still in Dill’s hometown, which I thought was Pine Bluff.

“How long have you been dating Dill?” I asked.

“Seven years,” Varena said, smiling brightly. This, too, was obviously a question that had been asked many times since Varena and Dill had announced their engagement.

“Dill is older than you?”

“Yeah, he’s even older than you,” my sister said.

Some things never change.

We heard my father’s yell from the front door. “One a you come help me with this damn thing?” he bellowed.

I got there first.

My father, who is stocky and short and bald as an eight ball, had hauled the long table out of the bed of his pickup to the front door and definitely needed help getting it up the steps.

“Hey, pigeon,” he said, his smile radiant.

I figured that would fade soon enough, so I hugged him while I could. Then I lifted the front of the table, which he’d propped against the iron railing that bordered the steps up to the front door.

“You sure that’s not too heavy for you?” Dad fussed. He had always had the delusion that the attack I’d endured somehow had made me weak internally, that I was now frail in some invisible manner. The fact that I could bench-press 120 pounds, sometimes more, had no influence on this delusion.

“I’m fine,” I said.

He picked up the rear of the table, which was the kind with metal legs that fold underneath for easy carrying. With a little maneuvering, we got it up the steps and into the living room. While I held the table on its side, he pulled out the metal legs and locked them into place. We swung the table upright. The whole time he worried out loud about me doing too much, straining myself.

I began to get that tight, hot feeling behind my eyes.

My mother appeared in the nick of time with yet another spotless white tablecloth. Without speaking she shook it out. I took the loose end, and together we spread it evenly over the table. My father talked the whole time, about the number of wedding presents Varena and Dill had gotten, about the number of wedding invitations they’d sent, about the acceptances they’d received, about the reception…

I eyed him covertly while we transferred some of the crowded presents to the new table. Dad didn’t look good. His face seemed redder than it should have been, his legs seemed to be giving him pain, and his hands shook a little. I knew he’d been diagnosed with high blood pressure and arthritis.

There was an awkward pause, once we’d gotten our little task accomplished.

“Ride over to my apartment with me and see the dress,” Varena offered.

“OK.”

We got in Varena’s car for the short drive over to her apartment, which was a small yellow cottage to the side of a big old yellow house where Emory and Meredith Osborn lived with their little girl and a new baby, Varena explained.

“When the Osborns bought this house from old Mrs. Smitherton-she had to go into Dogwood Manor, did I tell you?-I was worried they’d raise the rent, but they didn’t. I like them both, not that I see them that much. The little girl is cute, always got a bow in her hair. She plays with Anna sometimes. Meredith keeps Anna and the O’Sheas’ little girl after school, now and then.”

I thought I remembered that the O’Sheas were the Presbyterian minister and his wife. They’d come after I’d begun living in Shakespeare.

Varena was chattering away, as if she could hardly wait to fill me in on all the details of her life. Or as if she were uncomfortable with me.

We pulled into the driveway and passed the larger house to park in front of Varena’s place. It was a copy of the house in miniature, done in pale yellow siding with dark green shutters and white trim.

A little girl was playing the yard, a thin child with long brown hair. Sure enough, a perky red-and-green bow was clipped right above her bangs. On this cold day, she was wearing a sweatsuit topped by a coat and earmuffs, but still she looked chilly. She waved as Varena got out of her car.

“Hey, Miss Varena,” she called politely. She held a ball in her hands. When I got out of the passenger’s door, she stared at me with curiosity.

“Eve, this is my sister, Lily.” Varena turned to me. “Eve has a sister, too, a new one.”

“What’s her name?” I asked, since that seemed indicated. I am very uneasy around children.

“Jane Lilith,” Eve mumbled.

“That’s pretty,” I said, because I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“Is your sister taking a nap right now?” Varena asked.

“Yeah, and my mom too,” the girl said forlornly.

“Come in and see my dress,” Varena invited.

Eve really brightened up. Varena seemed to have a way with children. We trailed into the little front room of the house and followed Varena back to her bedroom. The closet door was open, and the wedding dress, swathed in plastic, was hanging on a special hanger that fitted over the top of the door.

Well, it was white and it was a wedding dress.

“It’s beautiful,” I said instantly. I am not stupid.

Eve was awestruck. “Oooo,” she said breathlessly.

Varena laughed, and as I looked at my sister, I saw how warm and responsive her face was, how good-natured she looked. “I’m glad you like it,” she said and went on talking to the child in an easy way that was totally beyond me.

“Can you pick me up so I can see the scarf?” Eve asked Varena.

I looked where the child was pointing. The veil, yards and yards of it, attached to an elaborate sort of tiara, was in a separate bag attached to the one holding the dress.

“Oh, honey, you’re too big for me to pick up,” Varena said, shaking her head. I could feel my eyebrows crawl up. Was it possible Varena couldn’t lift this girl? I assessed the child. Seventy-five pounds, tops. I squatted, wrapped my arms around her hips, and lifted.

Eve squealed with surprise and delight. She turned to look down at me.

“Can you see?” I asked.

Eve examined the veil, admired the glittering sequined tiara, and went all dreamy-eyed for a minute or two.

“You can put me down now,” she said eventually, and I gently lowered her to the floor. The girl turned to give me a long stare of evaluation.

“You’re really strong,” she said admiringly. “I bet nobody messes with you.”

I could practically taste Varena’s sudden silence.

“No,” I told the little girl. “Nobody messes with me now.”

Eve’s narrow face turned thoughtful. She thanked Varena for showing her the dress and veil in a perfectly polite way, but she seemed almost abstracted as she said she’d better be getting home.

Varena saw Eve out. “Oh, Dill’s here!” she exclaimed in a happy voice. I stared at the frothy white construction of a dress for a moment more before I followed Varena to the living room.

I’d known Dill Kingery since he moved to Bartley. He’d just begun dating Varena when the whole eruption in my life had occurred. He’d been a great solace to my sister during that time, when the whole family had needed all the help we could get.

They’d continued dating ever since. It had been a long engagement, long enough for Varena to bear a good amount of teasing from her coworkers at the tiny Bartley hospital.

Looking at Dill now, I wondered why he’d dragged his feet. I didn’t think he’d been beating other women off with a stick. Dill was perfectly nice and perfectly pleasant, but you wouldn’t turn to look at him twice on the street. My sister’s fiancй had thinning sandy hair, attractive brown eyes, wire-rimmed glasses, and a happy smile. His daughter, Anna, was another skinny little eight-year-old, with thick, shoulder-length brown hair that was lighter than her father’s. Anna had her dad’s eyes and smile. Anna’s mother had died when Anna was about eighteen months old, Dill had told us, in a car accident.

I watched while Anna hugged Varena. She was about to run to play with Eve when Dill stopped her. “Say hi to your aunt Lily,” he said firmly.

“Hey, Aunt Lily,” Anna said and gave me a casual wave of the hand, which I returned. “Can I play with Eve now, Daddy?”

“OK, sweetie,” Dill said, and the two girls clattered outside while Dill turned to me to give me a hug. I had to endure it, so I did, but I’m not a casual toucher. And I hadn’t quite adjusted to being “Aunt Lily.”

Dill asked me the usual questions you ask of someone you haven’t seen in while, and I managed to answer civilly. I was tensing up already, and nothing had happened to make me so. What was wrong with me? I stared out the front window while Dill and my sister talked over the plans for the evening. Tonight, I gathered, Dill was attending his bachelor dinner, while Varena and I and Mother were going to a wedding shower.

As I watched the two little girls playing on the front lawn, heaving the beach ball back and forth between them and running a lot, I tried to recall playing with Varena like that. Surely we had? But I couldn’t dredge up a single recollection.

Without asking me, Dill told Varena he’d run me home so she could start getting ready. I looked at my watch. If Varena needed three hours to get ready for a party, she needed help, in my opinion. But Varena seemed pleased with Dill’s offer, so I went outside to stand by Dill’s Bronco. A tiny, thin woman had come outside of the bigger house to call to Eve.

“Hey,” she said when she noticed me.

“Hello,” I said.

Eve came running up, Anna in tow.

“This is Varena’s sister, Mama,” she said. “She came for the wedding. Miss Varena showed me her dress, and Miss Lily picked me up so I could see the veil. You wouldn’t believe how strong Miss Lily is! I bet she can lift a horse!”

“Oh, my goodness,” said Eve’s mama, her thin face transformed by a sweet smile. “I better say hello, then. I’m Eve’s mother, as I’m sure you figured. Meredith Osborn.”

“Hello again,” I said. “Lily Bard.” This woman had just had a baby, according to Varena, but she looked no larger than a child herself. Losing “baby weight” was not going to be a problem for Meredith Osborn. I didn’t think Meredith Osborn was over thirty-one, my age, and she might be even younger.

“Can you pick us both up, Miss Lily?” Eve asked, and my niece-to-be suddenly looked much more interested in me.

“I think so,” I said and bent my knees. “One on either side, now!”

The girls each picked a side, and I hooked my arms around them and stood, making sure I was steady. The girls were squealing with excitement. “Hold still,” I reminded them, and they stopped the thrashing that I had worried would topple us all over onto the driveway.

“We’re queens of the world,” Anna shouted extravagantly, sweeping her arm to indicate her turf. “Look at how high up we are!”

Dill had been talking to Varena in the doorway, but now he glanced over to find out what Anna was doing. His face looked almost comical with surprise when he saw the girls.

With the anxious smile of someone who is trying not to panic, he strode over. “Better get down, sweetie! You’re a big load for Miss Lily.”

“They’re both small,” I said mildly and surrendered Anna to her dad. I swung Eve in front of me and set her down gently. She grinned up at me. Her mother was looking at her with that smile of love women get when they look at their kids. A little mewling sound came from the house. “I hear your sister crying,” Meredith Osborn said wearily. “We better go in and see. Good-bye, Miss Bard, nice to meet you.”

I nodded at Meredith and gave Eve a little smile. Her brown eyes, peering up at me, looked enormous. She grinned at me, a smile stretching from one ear to another, and dashed in after her mother.

Anna and her father were already in the Bronco, so I climbed in, too. Dill chatted all the way back to my parents’ home, but I half tuned him out. I had already talked to more people today than I normally spoke to in three or four days in Shakespeare. I was out of the habit of chitchat.

I got out at my folks’ with a nod to Dill and Anna and strode into the house. My mother was fluttering around the kitchen, trying to get something ready for us to eat before we went to the shower. My dad was in the bathroom getting ready for the bachelor dinner.

My mother was worried that some of Dill’s friends might get carried away and have a stripper perform at the party. I shrugged. My father wouldn’t be mortally offended.

“It’s your dad’s blood pressure I’m really worried about,” Mom said with a half smile. “If a naked woman popped out of a cake, no telling what might happen!”

I poured iced tea and set the glasses on the table. “It doesn’t seem too likely that anyone will do that,” I said, because she was looking for reassurance. “Dill’s not a kid, and it’s not his first marriage. I don’t think any of his local friends are likely to get that carried away.” I sat down at my place.

“You’re right,” Mom said with some relief. “You always have such good sense, Lily.”

Not always.

“Are you… seeing anyone… now, honey?” Mom asked gently.

I stared up at her as she hovered over the table, plates in her hands. I almost said no automatically.

“Yes.”

The fleeting look of sheer relief and pleasure that flashed across my mother’s pale, narrow face was so intense I felt like taking back my yes. I was feeling my way with Jack every hour we were together, and to have our relationship classified as a standard dating situation made me horribly anxious.

“Can you tell me a little about him?” Mom’s voice was calm, her hands steady as she set the plates down at our places. She sat down across from me and began to stir sugar into her tea.

I had no idea what to say.

“Oh, that’s all right, I don’t want to intrude on your privacy,” she said after a moment, flustered.

“No,” I said just as quickly. It seemed awful to me that we were so leery of each other’s every word and silence. “No, that’s… no, it’s OK. He…” I pictured Jack, and a tide of longing swept over me, so intense and painful that it took my breath away. After it ebbed, I said, “He’s a private detective. He lives in Little Rock. He’s thirty-five.”

My mother put her sandwich down on her plate and began smiling. “That’s wonderful, honey. What’s his name? Has he been married before?”

“Yes. His name is Jack Leeds.”

“Any kids?”

“No.”

“That’s easier.”

“Yes.”

“Though I know little Anna so well now, at first when Dill and Varena began dating… Anna was so little, not even toilet trained, and Dill’s mother didn’t seem to want to come to take care of Anna, though she was a cute little toddler…”

“That worried you?”

“Yes,” she admitted, nodding her faded blond head. “Yes, it did. I didn’t know if Varena could handle it. She never enjoyed baby-sitting very much, and she never talked about having babies, like most girls do. But she and Anna seemed to take to each other just fine. Sometimes she gets fed up with Anna’s little tricks, and sometimes Anna reminds Varena that she isn’t her real mother, but for the most part they get along great.”

“Dill wasn’t in the car wreck that killed his wife?”

“No, it was a one-car accident. Evidently, Judy, his wife, had just dropped off Anna at a sitter’s.”

“That was before Dill moved here?”

“Yes, just a few months before. He’d been living up northwest of Little Rock. He says he felt he just couldn’t bear to raise Anna there, every day having to pass the spot where his wife died.”

“So he moves to a town where he doesn’t know a soul, where he doesn’t have any family to help him raise Anna.” I spoke before I thought.

My mother gave me a sharp look. “And we’re mighty glad he did,” she said firmly. “The pharmacy here was up for sale, and it’s been wonderful to have it open, so we have a choice.” There was a chain pharmacy in Bartley, too.

“Of course,” I said, to keep the peace.

We finished our meal in silence. My father stomped through on his way out the kitchen door to his car, grousing the whole time about not fitting in at a bachelor dinner. We could tell he was really gleeful about being invited. He had a wrapped present tucked under his arm, and when I asked what it was, his face turned even redder. He pulled on his topcoat and slammed the back door behind him without answering.

“I suspect he bought one of those nasty gag gifts,” Mom said with a little smile as she listened to Father back out of the driveway.

I loved getting surprised by my mother. “I’ll do the dishes while you get ready,” I said.

“You need to try on your bridesmaid dress!” she said abruptly as she was rising to leave the kitchen.

“Right now?”

“What if we need to take it up?”

“Oh… all right.” This was not a moment I’d anticipated with any pleasure. Bridesmaids’ dresses are notorious for being unusable, and I’d paid for this one as a good bridesmaid should. But I hadn’t seen it yet. I had a horrible, wincing moment of picturing the dress as red velvet with fake fur trim to suit the Christmas motif.

I should have had more trust in Varena. The dress, which was hanging in my bedroom closet swathed in plastic like Varena’s own dress, was deep burgundy velvet, with a band of matching satin ribbon sewed under the breasts. In back, where the edges of the ribbon came together, there was a matching bow-but it was detachable. The dress had a high neckline but was cut low in the back. My sister didn’t want her bridesmaids demure, that was for sure.

“Try it on,” Mother urged. I could tell she wouldn’t be happy until I did. With my back to her, I pulled off my shirt and wriggled out of my shoes and jeans. But I had to turn to face her to get the dress, which she’d been divesting of its plastic bag.

Every time, the impact of my scars hit her in the heart. She took a deep, ragged breath and handed me the dress, and I got it over my head as quickly as possible. I turned so she could zip me, and together we looked at it in the mirror. Both our pairs of eyes went immediately to the neckline. Perfect. Nothing showed. Thank you, Varena.

“It looks beautiful,” Mother said stoutly. “Stand up straight, now.” (As if I slouched.) The dress did fit well, and who doesn’t love the feel of velvet?

“What kind of flowers are we carrying?”

“The bridesmaids’ bouquets are going to be long sprays of glads and some other stuff,” Mother said, who strictly left the gardening to my father. “You’re the maid of honor, you know.”

Varena hadn’t seen me in three years.

This wasn’t just a wedding, then. This was a full-scale family reconciliation.

I was willing, but I didn’t know if I was able. Plus, I hadn’t been to a wedding in a long time.

“Do I have to do anything special?”

“You have to carry the ring Varena’s giving Dill. You have to take her bouquet while she’s saying her vows.” Mom smiled at me, and her washed-blue eyes crinkled around the corners of her eyelids. When my mother smiled, her whole face smiled with her. “You’re lucky she didn’t pick a dress with a ten-foot train, because you’d have to turn it around for her before she leaves the church.”

I thought I could remember the ring and the bouquet.

“I’ll have to thank her for the honor,” I said, and Mom’s face sagged for just a minute. She thought I was being sarcastic.

“I mean it,” I told her, and I could almost feel her relax.

Had I been so frightening, so unpredictable, so rude?

When I’d worked my way carefully out of the dress, and pulled my T-shirt back on, I patted my mother gently on the shoulder as she made sure the dress was absolutely even on its padded hanger.

She smiled fleetingly at me, and then we went back to the kitchen to clean up.