Earthly Vows Page 2

  Angel ran her fingers across the collar of a tailored dress that hung in the back of Marshella’s Dry Goods and Clothiers. She moved her drawstring purse up her arm and over her shoulder.

  “So you live with my aunt Fern?” a teenaged girl asked Angel. She was a short fifteen-year-old named Phoebe, slightly younger than Angel.

  “I live with Jeb, along with my brother and sister, Willie and Ida May.” Angel pulled out the dress, as though she were seriously considering shelling out the five dollars to buy it.

  “Jeb’s good-looking, but his shoes look worn out. If a man can’t keep a good pair of shoes, he can’t buy you the things you need,” said Phoebe.

  Phoebe’s mother, Betty, had offered to take them window-shopping before meeting up with Jeb and Fern for a noon meal downtown. Angel stopped short of referring to Jeb as Fern’s fiancé. She was sworn to secrecy.

  “Are you an orphan?”

  “My mother got sick, so my father sent me to live with my sister in Nazareth.” She no longer had to explain her story back in Nazareth, so to rehash it made her irritable. “But Claudia had moved away, so we stayed with Jeb. You met him this morning. He’s the minister in our town.”

  “Where does Claudia live?”

  “My aunt Kate sent me a letter a few weeks ago about Claudia. She said that she had finally gotten word that Claudia settled in Norman.” Angel pulled off her hat. “Miz Abigail says Ardmore’s not far from Norman.” Abigail was Phoebe’s grandma.

  “Would you look at this dress? I look good in purple,” said Phoebe.

  Angel backed away from Phoebe. “Is it stuffy in here?” She put the dress back on the rack and said, “You keep looking and I’ll go out for some air.” She left Phoebe holding the purple dress in front of her. Phoebe was not Fern’s best niece.

  The sun bore down. Shimmers of heat danced over the downtown road, but a breeze cooled Angel’s skin. She breathed in the fresh air.

  “Aren’t you the pretty thing?” A youth sat behind the wheel of a deep blue Studebaker parked out in front of Marshella’s. His blond hair was cropped short on top, a patch of bangs hanging over his left brow.

  Angel glanced back inside Marshella’s. Phoebe was marching her momma to the rear of the store. Angel wanted to see inside the Studebaker. “I’ve never seen one of these before.”

  “Have a look then,” he said.

  “No one would drive this back home.”

  “Where’s back home?” he asked.

  “Nazareth. It’s close to Hot Springs.”

  “Is that in Oklahoma?”

  “Who are you?”

  The youth shifted in the driver’s seat and glanced down the street. “I’m Nash.”

  “You don’t talk like you’re from Oklahoma,” said Angel.

  “I’m from Boston.”

  Angel rubbed the chrome on the door.

  “Open her up. Have a look.” Nash smiled at Angel. He had good teeth, straight and shining out from a tanned face. He had combed in a good deal of male hair ointment, which darkened his hair.

  Angel opened the door. She touched the leather and he was smiling, so she said, “I’m going to have a car like this one day. Is it yours?”

  “I can’t lie. I’m the driver for the owner. He’s not around at the present, though. Want a ride around the block?”

  Angel stepped away and backed under the shade of the faded store awning. Nash kept smiling out at her through the opened car door.

  “How old are you?” he asked.

  “Seventeen. You?”

  “Older than you. Not much, though. You look older, kind of like a girl I knew back in Boston. Her name was Ethel Fox. Is that your name too?”

  She smiled. Inside the store, Phoebe and her mother were looking over the tops of the store racks. “I have to go. I’m shopping with … an aunt.” She didn’t want to explain her life all over again. If Jeb and Fern married, Betty and Phoebe would be like family soon enough. She came out into the sunlight and closed the car door.

  Betty stuck her head out the store door. “Angel, we’re trying to decide on this dress. Want to help us?”

  “I got faint, need some air. I should stay out here,” said Angel.

  Betty stepped from the doorway and felt her forehead, so Angel kept saying she was fine. Finally Betty went back inside.

  “Your name suits you,” said Nash.

  “There’s a drugstore around the corner. I could use a cold drink, what with the heat and all.” Angel pulled out the neck of her dress and fanned.

  “How convenient! I can drive you.” Nash jumped out of the car and ran around to open the door for her. She sunk into the hot leather seat. “You have a nickel for the soda?” she asked.

  “Don’t worry about money. Tab’s on me,” he said.

  She would have to meet Jeb and Fern in a half hour at the Blue Moon Diner. “I can’t stay long,” she told him.

  Nash checked his watch. “I got a minute I can spare for a girl like you.”

  Jeb cranked up the Coulter Packard. Abigail never drove, not since Francis had died. Fern and her mother, Abigail, climbed inside. Abigail complained of the heat, but Fern didn’t say a lot, and hadn’t since Jeb brought up the church offer.

  “Ida May and Willie want to stay here at the house, Jeb,” said Abigail. “My niece likes doing for them, you know, making up lunch and all.”

  Jeb said, “Your brothers are coming to lunch today, as I understand it, right, Fern?”

  Fern nodded and then let out a breath.

  “My guess is that I could cook chicken out on the brick walk. Fern, roll down your window before I faint.” Abigail laughed. “Now that’d be a memory here on the announcement of your engagement. I wish your father were here.” She stared out the window. “Fern, you’ll have to get Buddy to give you away. Jeb, I don’t believe you’ve met Fern’s oldest brother, Lewis, have you? I hope you marry in the winter. Oklahoma’s too hot this time of year.”

  “I’ve not met any of her brothers, Mrs. Coulter.”

  “That’s right. The last time Fern was here was for her father’s funeral. You stayed back home and sent Angel in your place. I wanted so many times to take her aside and talk to her about her family. But what with the funeral and all, it never seemed the right time.”

  “Angel doesn’t open up too well with me,” said Jeb.

  “You’re a man, though, Jeb. No offense,” said Abigail.

  Jeb drove them off the Coulter estate and toward town. “Looks like some clouds moving in,” he said.

  “It hasn’t rained since I can’t remember. Fern, you remember the summer we prayed for rain and you ran out on the lawn and did an Indian dance?”

  “Did it work?” asked Jeb.

  “I don’t think I did that, Mother,” said Fern.

  “I know that had to be you. Your sisters were all too fussy to do such a thing,” said Abigail.

  Fern sighed. She hadn’t ever described her sisters as fussy.

  “There’s a drop of rain on the glass. Want me to stop the car and let you out to dance, Fern?” asked Jeb.

  “I’d do a dance if I thought it would help.” Abigail rolled up the window glass before the road dust seeped inside.

  “Angel sure likes your hospitality, Abigail. She says she’d rather be at your house than anyplace else,” said Jeb.

  “I wonder if those girls have shopped out all the downtown stores,” Abigail asked. “You’d think they had a bag of money the way they ran out of here this morning.”

  “Angel can’t resist a new dress,” said Fern. “She has a little money from a job she took back home.”

  “Not anymore. She bought Ida May some new shoes,” said Jeb. “I should have given her some spending money.” He had never seen Angel hang on to what money she made for long. She acted guilty about Willie and Ida May and thought it her duty to see to them when her mother and father hadn’t.

  “Maybe Betty can buy her something, just anything. I hate to see her empty-handed,”
said Abigail.

  “Angel finds ways to get the things she needs. She’s, how do I put this, resourceful.” Jeb slowed for a rabbit.

  Abigail guided Jeb all the way into downtown Ardmore. “As you pull into town, you’ll drive past the Ardmore Savings and Loan and then drive for four more blocks.” Her manicured fingers pointed, directing Jeb as though she were leading a choir. “See, yonder there’s the bank. The first street on your right is Ashton. Take that and then park beside the drugstore. The Blue Moon is directly across the street.”

  “Lively town,” said Jeb, only so Fern would give him a look.

  Cars lined most of the streets outside the storefronts. A group of men smoked out on a bench near the bank. Some women and children formed a commodities line out the door of the courthouse and down the marble steps.

  “I think they’re passing out milk today. Such a shame to see so many families hit so hard.” Abigail fell quiet for a moment and then said, “I feel helpless when I see the children in rags.”

  “Is that Gary Hayes?” Fern asked, looking toward the courthouse.

  Abigail pushed her glasses up higher on her nose. “It is.”

  “He was the groundskeeper at our high school. I hate seeing him standing in the milk line,” said Fern.

  “At least he’s got milk to get. The teachers have all kept their jobs for the most part, but some of the staff was let go. They could use a teacher like you.”

  “Here’s the Blue Moon.” Jeb parked across the street. He opened the car door and walked around to open both doors for Fern and Abigail.

  “I see Betty and Phoebe inside already.” Abigail led them across the street. She waved at the girls.

  The aroma of the noon special—fried chicken, biscuits, and black-eyed peas—floated out to the street. Jeb opened the door for the women. He didn’t see Angel. Fern had introduced him that morning to Betty and Phoebe. “Afternoon,” he said. “Angel still buying out the store?”

  “I was hoping to find her here with you, Reverend. The last time Phoebe and I saw her, she was standing out in front of Marshella’s,” said Betty.

  “She was talking to a boy.” Phoebe blew a large gum bubble.

  “I didn’t see that.” Betty sounded disgusted with her, like she didn’t believe her. “I’ll go back and see if I can find her.” She turned to leave.

  “Why don’t you ladies secure us a table? The rest of the Coulters haven’t arrived yet. I’ll go and look for Angel.” Jeb saw the look Fern gave him. “Don’t worry. She’s close by, I’m sure.”

  “Marshella’s is down Ashton Street and then around the corner, about a block and a half, if you want to start there.” Betty asked a waitress if she could help them find a table for nine.

  “Yonder she is,” said Abigail. “Coming out of the J&M Drug.”

  “Is she with a boy? He was really good-looking,” said Phoebe. “Nice car.”

  Angel walked out of the drugstore adjusting her hat, dabbing her mouth like she’d eaten.

  “She went for cold refreshment, that’s all.” Abigail sounded relieved. “In this heat, who can blame her?”

  Jeb hated to believe Phoebe, but he knew Angel well enough too. He didn’t see anyone follow Angel out of the drugstore. He opened the door for her and she smiled. “You finally made it, Biggest,” he said.

  “I bought a soda. I was burning up hot in this dress. I should have dressed in something lighter.”

  She must have had enough money. He didn’t ask.

  The waitress seated them all right as Fern’s brothers appeared. Jeb got up and shook hands with the Coulters.

  “Jeb, these are my brothers, Buddy and Lewis. Betty is Edward’s wife and Phoebe is their daughter,” said Fern.

  Angel lit up. “I met you, didn’t I, at the funeral?” She was putting a folded piece of paper in her pocketbook.

  “Angel was with us when I came home for Daddy’s funeral,” Fern told her brothers. “You remember, don’t you?”

  Buddy gave her a pat. “You’ve gotten taller and prettier, though, while I just seem to keep getting older.”

  Angel laughed.

  A pretty woman with dark hair and a dotted red dress joined them. Buddy introduced her as his wife, Esther. “Our daughter, Fawn, is back at Mother’s watching your youngest children, Reverend.”

  Jeb thanked them. They all took a seat and started placing their lunch orders.

  Angel took off her hat and placed it in her lap.

  Jeb leaned over and whispered, “I hope you’re behaving yourself.”

  Abigail said directly to Angel, “When Fern told me your family might be living in Oklahoma, I told her I’d check into it. Did I understand you, Fern?”

  “Oh, yes, ma’am, you did,” said Angel. “In a letter I got last week from my aunt Kate, she says that she has heard for sure that my sister Claudia is living in Oklahoma. She called it Norman.”

  “When was the last time you saw your sister?” asked Abigail.

  “It’s been a while, ma’am. Claudia left Snow Hill long before my momma went off to Little Rock and Daddy sent us away,” said Angel. “Her husband had a good job, but he lost it. At least that’s what Aunt Kate says.”

  “I know a family who owns a little café in Norman. I’ll see if they know anything about—what is your sister’s name again?”

  “Claudia Drake. She’s married and has kids, maybe two by now.”

  Abigail wrote it down and slipped it into her handbag.

  Angel was smiling. “I miss Claudia more than life. I wish she’d write. Aunt Kate says she sent her our address in Nazareth.”

  “That does it! We’re taking this child to Norman,” said Abigail.

  “I’m afraid we’re running out of time, Mother. We’ve got golf all day tomorrow and then that party on Friday,” said Fern.

  There she was using that tone again, showing her irritation.

  “Fern, you can’t miss that,” said Abigail. “I’ll think of something.”

  A siren sounded out in the street. One face after another appeared in the shop windows along the street as people craned their necks to look up Ashton Street.

  “Curtis Flannigan’s calf must have gotten loose,” said Buddy.

  Everyone laughed.

  “That’s about as exciting as it gets here in Ardmore,” said Abigail.

  A man in overalls rushed into the Blue Moon. His face was ashen. He yelled, “The Savings and Loan, it just got robbed!”

  “This never happens here,” said Buddy. “It’s a rumor.”

  Angel looked out the window. All was quiet on the street. A squad car roared past a minute later.

  The Coulters went back to their eating.

  “Did you see them?” Buddy asked the man in overalls.

  “My neighbor, he got a good look at the driver and one of the gunmen. Said they were driving a Studebaker. But another man gave a different story entirely.”

  Phoebe cast a curious glance at Angel. “That good-looking boy you were talking to out in front of Marshella’s, he drove a Studebaker, didn’t he?”

  Angel shrugged. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You want to tell me what Phoebe means?” asked Jeb. “I only talked to him. Let’s eat.”

  Fern and Jeb exchanged glances. “The girl’s right. Let’s eat before we faint,” said Abigail.

  2

  FERN SAID SHE WOULD BUY JEB A NEW SUIT of clothes. But Abigail took one of her husband’s suits and fitted it to him. Myrna was brought in on the fitting and Jeb elevated on a stool in the parlor, where the light of morning poured into the room. The black suit jacket’s broad shoulders were drawn in, measured soberly by Abigail and Myrna.

  He smelled the leftover chicken being warmed for the noon hour and either collards or turnip greens boiling, the green, pungent smell hanging in the air. Myrna put it on to cook straight after breakfast, to clear away some time for the alteration. The women kept pinning the trousers until the waistband tucked snugly
next to his stomach and the seat of the pants were tailored close-fitting but leaving some give for the times he might want to sit.

  Fern sat in her father’s old reading chair frowning down at the pages of Dr. Flauvert’s gift of Jane Eyre. The two bookcases behind her converged in a dark corner displaying a red leather-bound set of medical journals, several three- or four-pound books, a dried sponge from Tarpon Springs, Florida, two hundred or so books lettered in fading gold and the books’ binding tattering, and numerous framed photographs of Francis Coulter in golf attire posing with golfing friends. Fern turned another page and cocked her head. She had let down her hair from beneath the beret she wore on her morning walk. The tendrils shone next to the flame of a tapered candle lit by Myrna and left on the end table.

  Abigail lifted Jeb’s right arm to confirm that the sleeve length was exactly as she said it would be—“perfect.” She kept swabbing her forehead with a handkerchief. “You best go check on the greens, Myrna, before they boil over,” her Southern accent allowing for every vowel due to her eastern education.

  Myrna unfastened the pincushion from her wrist and slid it into her smock pocket, Hooverettes, the ladies called them. “If the reverend can leave his trousers with me this morning, I’ll have them sewn and done up by Thursday latest.”

  Fern looked up from her book. Her eyes were darkened by the shadow of the bookcase.

  “The coat’s a good fit. I’m glad to see this suit in use again,” said Abigail. She glanced at Fern, who was still buried in Jane Eyre. “I don’t know what’s gotten into her,” she said to Jeb.

  Fern closed the book and laid it next to the melting candle.

  Jeb slid off the dinner jacket and handed it to Abigail. “Your husband had good taste, Mrs. Coulter. I like the feel of good cloth.”

  Myrna turned on the radio, but turned it down before Abigail complained about the throbbing swing music.

  “We’d better get on our way, Fern. Reverend Flauvert will be waiting for us at his home.”

  Abigail folded the jacket over her arm. “Fern, I thought you would want to be married here in our church.”