Looking For Salvation At The Dairy Queen Part 4

Waiting for My Moses Moment with Joseph Riding Shotgun Daddy gave me my first set of luggage on my sixteenth birthday. He had all three pieces, which were the prettiest shade of baby blue I'd ever seen, propped up against the fireplace just like it was Christmas morning. A tag sewn inside one of them said they were made of 100 percent plastic vinyl, but they were streaked and veined to look like real leather. And I loved them. They were so beautiful sitting there, waiting for some unknown adventure.

Taped to the cosmetic bag was a Hallmark card that Daddy must have picked up at the Dollar General Store. A picture of a baby bird about to leap out of his mama's nest was on the front of the card along with this corny saying about needing to love someone enough to let him go because only then will the love come back to you. I got the point. Daddy was going to let me leave town on my eighteenth birthday without a fuss so I could get this big-city foolishness out of my system. But I'd fly back. He was counting on it, just like the little bird on the card.

When it came right down to it, I'm not sure my daddy was convinced I'd be brave enough to step out of his nest in the first place. Sometimes I wasn't so sure myself. In my most secret moments, I'd been known to do a little down-on- my-knees praying, begging the Lord to send me my very own savior, just like He'd done for the Israelites, except my Moses would take me by the hand and lead me right out of this town and into the Promised Land somewhere down in Fulton County. But with every "Amen" came the realization that G.o.d wasn't sending me an escort. Nope, this exodus was going to be up to me.

I had memorized every nitpicky detail of my long-awaited departure-down to the very minute the Greyhound Bus would be pulling out of the parking lot at the Dairy Queen. The bus schedule was taped to the back of my bedroom door. It was the last thing I stared at every night before closing my eyes. I had rehea.r.s.ed my good-bye to Daddy and Martha Ann a thousand times, always rea.s.suring my little sister that I'd be ready and waiting when it was her turn to leave the nest. And in my head, I sat on that old, sticky picnic table one last time, licking one more chocolate-covered Dilly Bar for old time's sake.

The one detail I hadn't planned on was Henry Morel Blankens.h.i.+p. Henry, or Hank, as everybody in town called him except his mother, was the captain of the Ringgold High School football team, leader of the Young Life Christian Fellows.h.i.+p, and president of the local chapter of the Future Farmers of America, all good reasons not to like him, in my opinion. I'd known Hank since, uh, forever. Of course, I'd known everybody in Ringgold since forever. There were only 1,923 of us, depending on who was coming and going from this world on any given day. But Hank and I had never bothered to get to know each other. We were more like two magnets that you try to force together but they just keep pus.h.i.+ng themselves apart.

He was just too perfect. He was the cutest, smartest, most athletic boy in town. His daddy was a dairy farmer, and he must have made a better living than most of the other farmers in the county because Hank lived in a two-story, redbrick house with four white columns holding up the roof. There was even a fountain in the middle of the front yard that did nothing but spout water day and night.

But if that wasn't reason enough not to like him, he also had the most beautiful mama in town. When we were in grade school, she was always coming by our cla.s.sroom to help our teacher cut odd little shapes out of colored construction paper and staple our artwork to the bulletin board. On his birthday, she would appear wearing a smoothly pressed dress with her warm golden hair pulled up in a neatly braided twist, and in her hands, she carried a platter of perfectly decorated cupcakes. My mama would have done that for me, I'd tell myself, only my cupcakes would have had chocolate frosting with pink sprinkles on top.

I told Martha Ann once that Hank was kind of like Joseph with his coat of many colors, which Miss Raines stuck up on the felt board. Joseph's father, Jacob, loved his son. In fact, he loved Joseph more than his other eleven boys. Joseph was handsome and perfect just like Hank. And when Jacob gave Joseph a rich, colorful coat, it made his other brothers so jealous that they threw him in a well and then sold him into slavery for no more than twenty lousy pieces of silver.

I never planned on throwing Hank in a well, but I can't say I never thought about it. It might have done him some good to sit down there for a while. He had the highest grade point average in Mr. Polter's algebra cla.s.s, just two points better than my own. He was the town's essay-contest winner three years in a row. And he was always putting down my Bulldogs whenever he got the chance. A boy like that deserved to come down a notch or two.

But worse than any of that was his dogged determination to personally embarra.s.s me at my daddy's own church. Hank Blankens.h.i.+p won the gold medal at Miss Raines's Bible Verse Sword Drill, every single year; and I know he did it just to make me, the preacher's daughter, look like a fool.

On the third Sunday in June, the day before the official start of Vacation Bible School, Miss Raines would have us move our chairs into a straight line stretching from one end of the cla.s.sroom to the other. Each of us was a.s.signed a chair where we would sit with a Bible resting carefully on our laps. Then Miss Raines would slowly and meticulously explain the rules of the Bible Verse Sword Drill, which we already knew by heart. And finally, when you couldn't stand the antic.i.p.ation any longer, she would draw a small piece of paper from a basket and announce a chapter and a verse.

"Girls and boys, the first verse is E-PHE-SIANS FIFTEEN THIR-TY-SIX," she would say, annunciating ev-er-y syl-la-ble.

We would flip through the pages of our Bibles as fast as we could, racing to be the first to put our left index finger on the verse and our right hand high in the air signaling our success. The last person to find the verse was eliminated from the line, and the first one to go was usually Billy Thornton. Actually it was no big surprise when Billy was diagnosed with some sort of learning problem and sent to a special school down in Marietta. But for now, Billy, who was madly in love with Miss Raines, didn't seem to mind losing much because he still got his prize, standing next to his teacher and watching for hands, and Miss Raines's b.r.e.a.s.t.s, flying in the air.

One by one the others in the cla.s.s would leave their Bibles in their chairs and take their place at the front of the room. And in the end, year after year, the glory of a first-place finish was always a race between Hank and me. And without fail, that boy would manage to find that last verse just a split second before I could get there. I'd have my finger moving down the page when I'd hear a shout from the other end of the room, "I've got it," and Hank would leave with another gold medal hanging around his neck.

By the time I turned sixteen, I had learned to tolerate his perfection, and he had learned to tolerate my surly indifference. "Gee, Catherine Grace," Ruthie Morgan would tell me, "with that pleasant att.i.tude of yours, I'm sure the boys are just lining up to go out with you." Ruthie Morgan had always enjoyed pointing out my shortcomings, and now, all grown up, and dressed in a cute baby blue sweater set and freshly polished Papagallos, she seemed to have no visible imperfections of her own. She just made something of a hobby identifying mine.

Truth be told, most of the other girls were fairly certain I would be left a lonely, bitter spinster. But I think that had more to do with my refusal to attend Miss Lilly Martin's School of Etiquette and Social Graces held every Tuesday for two laborious hours in a house that reeked of mothb.a.l.l.s and Glade room freshener.

Turned out, Lolly and me were the only girls in our graduating cla.s.s at Ringgold High who did not also possess a diploma from Miss Lilly Martin's School of Etiquette and Social Graces. Lolly's mama said she wasn't going to spend one dime on teaching Lolly how to hold a knife and fork judging by the way she had gained weight. She said she had already figured out how to do that just fine. And Daddy said when it got right down to it, a man would rather have a wife who could talk football than etiquette. So I took my chances.

But my junior year, something strange and very unexpected happened. I saw Hank as if I were meeting him for the very first time. I was attending a Young Life meeting at church, something my daddy made me do regularly, since apparently being the preacher's daughter meant serving as his personal amba.s.sador to all teenaged Christian functions. Anyway, we were singing the last verse of "Michael Row the Boat Ash.o.r.e" when Daddy interrupted to ask the group if we would consider putting together a program for the Christmas Eve Cedar Grove Holiday Celebration. Of course, we had no choice but to say yes because when the preacher asked you to do something the answer was always yes.

Hank, not surprisingly, was excited about the chance to show off in front of the entire church. He looked up at my daddy and said something about it being an honor and that we would not let him or the good Lord down. Oh brother.

"Let's tell the story," he said with authority, like he had been thinking of this for a long time, "of the night Jesus was born. But let's tell it our way. In our version, Mary and Joseph will hitchhike all the way from some place like Louisville, wander along Highway 127, and then stumble into Ringgold sometime close to midnight. Worn out and dirty from their journey, they'll look for a place for Mary to have her baby. But will somebody in our small town, which, let's face it, was probably not all that different from Bethlehem, welcome a strange couple and embrace them in their time of need?"

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. The old blue-haired ladies might think this was blasphemy, but I thought it was brilliant. A bunch of teenagers were going to make their very own neighbors, their brethren in Christ, wonder if they would have been kind enough to give Mary a warm, safe place to birth our Savior and Redeemer, which I kind of doubted-remembering how Brother Hawkin's daughter had been hidden down in Texas for a good nine months while her good-for-nothing boyfriend strutted his b.u.t.t around the county dating anybody with a skirt and drinking beers behind the high school on Sat.u.r.day nights.

Anyway, I hated to admit it. I mean I really hated to admit it, but this was a great idea. And I felt like, for the first time, I wasn't the only one who was seeing the small-minded way of thinking here that people seemed to cultivate just as mightily as their gossip and their vegetables. Even Mrs. Roberta Huckstep might be forced to consider if she was Christian enough to let some strange, young couple rest their heads on one of her beds covered with those crisply starched, white cotton sheets that had a big pink H monogrammed on the edge.

Everybody was excited, patting Hank on the shoulders and chatting about the props and costumes and who should be Mary and who should be Joseph and if anybody in town had a live baby we could borrow for the performance. Hank reminded us that we needed to be humble and right-minded in making all these decisions. Then he closed our meeting with a word of prayer just like he always did.

"Lord, thank you for bringing your children together tonight for fellows.h.i.+p. We praise you for all you've given us, and please guide us as we prepare for our Christmas pageant. Touch Johnny Blanchard with your healing power 'cause his mama says he has mono, and uh, you better go ahead and touch Lucy Mills while you're at it. And, one more thing, we know you have the weight of the world on your shoulders, but if you could lead the Ringgold Tigers to victory Friday night, well, we'd love to win one before the end of the season. In your name we pray, Amen."

I know the Lord works in mysterious ways. I'd seen it for myself like when Daddy healed Ruthie Morgan's dying grandmother simply by laying his hands on her head and praying for one mighty long time. I couldn't make out a single word he said, but the Lord must have heard him, because the very next morning, she was sitting up in bed eating scrambled eggs and fried ham.

But even that miracle couldn't prepare me for what happened next. Sh.e.l.ley Hatfield, undeniably the most beautiful girl in Ringgold, and undoubtedly the most obvious choice for Mary, said, "I think Catherine Grace Cline should be Mary and, Hank, of course, you should be Joseph."

I figured every girl in that room was hoping to be Hank's Mary, especially Sh.e.l.ley Hatfield. I was planning on working behind the curtain, organizing props, turning on lights, anything but being Hank's fiancee knocked up by the Holy Spirit himself.

Martha Ann opened her mouth in disbelief. "You, Mary. Wait till Gloria Jean hears this," she said leaning into my ear.

Being the preacher's daughter had never really been an advantage, at least not as far as I could tell. My mama was gone and that stupid golden egg never did end up in my basket, and not one of those Sword Drill medals ever found its way around my neck. You'd think I'd have at least one pin for perfect attendance since my daddy had dragged me to church every single Sunday in those stupid, patent-leather Mary Janes. Nope, not that either, because I'd usually get some juicy head cold in the middle of February that would keep me in bed one Sunday out of the year. And now Mary, the one thing I didn't want, didn't need, was mine. Everyone else seemed equally amazed by Sh.e.l.ley's suggestion, and in the awkward moment of silence that followed, Hank searched my face looking for some sort of approval.

The very next day, I was standing in front of my locker putting away my composition notebook, when Joseph himself came up and grabbed me by the arm. "Catherine Grace, you know we need to start practicing as soon as possible. There's only four weeks before the holiday celebration, and I've got football practice almost every afternoon. So I was thinking maybe I could come over to your house on Sat.u.r.day, and we could start figuring out what we're going to do."

"Fine, Hank, we'll work around your very busy schedule because I'm not really doing much of anything with my life, and I'm sure it is so time consuming trying to win one football game," I shot back, wondering myself why I was acting like such a sharp-tongued jerk.

"Catherine Grace, that is not what I meant, but if you're going to act like this, well, I might just leave your a.s.s in that stable with the other donkeys, where apparently it belongs."

I stared at Hank in disbelief. I couldn't believe Mr. Perfect had said that to me, the preacher's daughter, of all people. Hank Blankens.h.i.+p was human after all. We both burst out laughing. And in that moment, I started looking at Hank differently. I had never noticed that he was a full head taller than me or that his arms were thick and rippling with muscles, or that his eyes were as blue as sapphires, or that Catherine Cline Blankens.h.i.+p had kind of a nice ring to it.

Oh, my G.o.d, I liked a boy, and not just any boy. I liked Henry Morel Blankens.h.i.+p. Gloria Jean said I had had an epiphany, an epiphany of the heart. Martha Ann loved the sound of that. "Oh, an epiphany of the heart," she echoed, "just like Romeo and Juliet, sort of, well, without the feuding families and the suicidal ending."

All I knew was that every time we practiced our lines, I discovered something new and wonderful about him, like this sweet, tiny dimple on the left side of his mouth that grew deeper and deeper the more he smiled.

No, no way, I kept telling myself. I couldn't like him. And he certainly couldn't like me. But what if he did like me and we started dating and went steady and got engaged and then . . . married? I could end up living in Ringgold, raising his family, and growing his tomatoes. No, no, no. This was not part of the plan that I had rehea.r.s.ed for the past sixteen years. I could not let some gorgeous, kind, generous, adorable, dimpled, football-playing Christian boy lead me astray.

Daddy announced our pageant from the pulpit every chance he got, and with so much advance publicity, the church was packed by curtain time. Most of the little kids had to sit on the floor just to make room for their parents. And though Hank and I had practiced our lines a thousand times, now waiting in the hallway, I started to sweat and feel kind of faint. I wasn't really scared about being in front of so many people; practically growing up behind the pulpit, I was used to that. But I had never been in front of so many people with such an important secret hidden in my heart.

I mean, would they be able to tell how I really felt? Would Miss Raines or Mrs. Roberta Huckstep or Ruthie Morgan or, worse yet, my own daddy know that secretly, deep down inside, I was falling in love with Hank? Would they be able to tell that Mary was having some very impure thoughts about Joseph? Leaning against the wall in the hallway outside the sanctuary, I slowly slid to the floor. I didn't even notice Hank standing in front of me, leaning over my body.

"Catherine . . . Catherine," he said ever so gently. "The shepherds are waiting. It's time to go on." But I just gazed at him standing there draped in an old green sheet that probably came from his mama's linen closet and said nothing.

"Catherine, hey, are you in there?" he asked, touching my cheek with his fingertips. "Come on, we gotta get you to the barn before the Christ child is born without us."

I looked up to see Hank holding out his hand. As I propped myself up against the wall, Hank leaned over me. He held my cheek in his hand and whispered in my ear, "I doubt the Virgin Mary looked as beautiful as you do tonight." And then he kissed me on the cheek.

When I walked into that sanctuary holding Hank's hand, I didn't look like some poor pregnant woman in the throes of labor who'd spent the last day or more riding in the back of a tractor-trailer. No, I looked like I had just won the monthly sweepstakes at the Shop Rite. And while the shepherds, or in Hank's version the farmhands, were announcing our Savior's birth, all I could think about was how much I wanted to wrap my arms around Joseph's waist, hold him tight against my chest, and French kiss him long and hard. That's right, I wanted to fall down in the hay and kiss him till my lips were sore. And I was pretty sure that was some kind of very special Christmas sin.

I said all my lines on cue and even managed to force a tear when the baby Jesus, who would save all mankind from their sinning ways, was finally born. But by that time I figured the entire congregation could see that I was the first sinner who was going to need some saving.

Miss Raines rushed up to me after the performance and pulled me into her arms.

"Catherine, you were wonderful. You absolutely glowed tonight. I don't think I've ever seen you with such a smile on your face."

"Well, you know, it's, uh, well, the Christmas spirit and all."

"Whatever it was, sweetie, you were great," she said. And then in a hushed tone, she added, "I know that your mama is so proud of you tonight."

Oh my Lord. I was so in love with a boy that even my mama could see it from heaven. Oh G.o.d, maybe I really was glowing. I pulled my scarf farther down on my face and tried to act as though I had forgotten that Hank had kissed me on the cheek. But inside I felt like a bug flying to the light. I just couldn't resist his strong arms or his warm blue eyes. And he wasn't making it any easier for me, either. After the Christmas pageant, he walked me home with his arm around my shoulders, just to keep me warm, he said. At school on Monday, he found me in the cafeteria and squeezed his body in next to mine at the lunch table. And he started stopping by my house every day on his way home from school. True love was, as Gloria Jean had prophesized, more powerful than the both of us.

By Valentine's Day, it was official; we were going steady, something the other girls at Ringgold Senior High had a hard time accepting. The most popular boy in school had fallen for the sa.s.sy-mouthed girl who'd never had a boyfriend before in her life. Yep, that would be me.

I could tell by the way Ruthie Morgan and her friends whispered in one another's ears whenever Hank and I walked down the hall together that they were convinced that young Mr. Blankens.h.i.+p was wasting his time with the preacher's daughter. And I didn't know for sure, but sometimes I wondered if they were right. I wondered if Hank loved me because I was the one thing in his life that wasn't perfect.

But whatever his reasons, Hank wanted to be with me, all the time. And it wasn't long before we had developed a predictable yet wonderful routine of our own. We studied together every Monday night at Hank's house, where his mother would fix us spaghetti and a green salad tossed with Thousand Island dressing. On Wednesdays we went to the Young Life meetings at church, and before taking me home, Hank would drive me over to the Dairy Queen for some fries or a chocolate-dipped cone, knowing good and well I ate Dilly Bars only on Sat.u.r.days with Martha Ann. Then every Friday night he came to dinner at our house, something my daddy seemed to enjoy almost more than I did. They'd talk about sports and President Carter and just about everything in between. Daddy never acted like he regretted not having a son, but he sure did enjoy borrowing the Blankens.h.i.+ps' once a week.

Sometimes when we were alone, I could barely keep myself from giving all I had to Hank Blankens.h.i.+p. Gloria Jean called it the gift. Daddy called it the sin, at least until your wedding night when it magically became the gift. The touch of Hank's hand on my b.r.e.a.s.t.s made me feel more like a woman than I figured any number of cla.s.ses at Miss Lilly Martin's School of Etiquette and Social Graces ever could. There were times when we parked in his red truck down by Chickamauga Creek, when he'd unb.u.t.ton my blouse and I'd toss his s.h.i.+rt on the floor, and I could feel his warm, smooth chest rubbing against my b.r.e.a.s.t.s. My entire body would flutter with excitement and I was pretty darn willing to give and sin all over Hank's beautiful, perfect body.

But not Hank. No, he said it wouldn't be right. Nothing beyond second base until there was a ring on my finger, especially with me being the preacher's daughter and all. Once again, being the preacher's daughter didn't seem to be working in my favor.

It shouldn't have been any big surprise that by the time graduation rolled around, people-not just our friends but Hank's mother, Gloria Jean, my own daddy, even me-started speculating about a possible Blankens.h.i.+p-Cline engagement. I mean, we had been dating for almost a year and a half and apparently that was almost as much of an official proposal as that ring on my finger Hank kept alluding to.

"Catherine, have you and Hank talked about your future, after graduation and all? I know you've been planning on leaving town, but I thought you might be rethinking that, you know since Hank's in your life now," Daddy said as we were standing in the kitchen one night cleaning the dinner dishes.

"Daddy, no boy is going to stand between me and my dreams. You ought to know that, believe it or not, not even Hank Blankens.h.i.+p. When this little birdie flies the coop, she's going to build her very own nest in a tree that's really big with lots of cool-looking branches," I said emphatically.

But inside, I was having doubts, big doubts about whether I'd be able to step out of the only nest I'd ever known. I loved Hank. I knew that. I couldn't imagine being without him. But I couldn't imagine living the rest of my life in Ringgold, even with Hank. I kept encouraging him to go to college, go to Georgia Tech, heck, I could learn to cope with a Yellow Jacket. He could be a veterinarian or a lawyer, anything but a dairy farmer. The biggest dream he had was going to the community college down in Dalton, studying a little agriculture, and coming back to Ringgold and working his daddy's farm.

I couldn't understand why he didn't want more. He wanted me. He told me that. But every time I asked myself if I wanted to grow his tomatoes, I felt sick to my stomach. Sometimes I wondered if my own mama ever felt sick to her stomach. Did she ever have thoughts of being something more? Was she afraid that Daddy was going to be the only true love of her life, and out of fear or stupidity, gave up her dreams and got married?

My head was spinning, something it had been doing an awful lot these past few months, but thankfully the only question Hank had on his mind was whether or not I was going to be his date for the Senior Prom.

Daddy asked Gloria Jean to drive me to Chattanooga and help me find a dress. I think even he was willing to admit that shopping for a formal gown was one of her G.o.d-given talents. So early one Sat.u.r.day morning, Martha Ann and me piled into the front seat of the LeSabre and headed the twenty-something miles north to Chattanooga.

We got there an hour or so before the stores opened and decided to have breakfast at a cozy diner next to Love-man's department store. We sat in the last empty booth in the back of the diner and did what all the other women were doing, sipped coffee and hot chocolate and chatted about the day's possibilities. I kept thinking this would have been something Mama would have done with me, which made me feel excited and sad all at the same time, a kind of awkward, empty feeling that had become all too familiar.

As soon as the store opened, Gloria Jean took Martha Ann and me by the hands and walked us through the front doors and up a long flight of stairs. A white-haired woman wearing a navy blue dress and navy pumps appeared be fore us and offered to help, like a star guiding the way. Once she heard Gloria Jean say the word prom, she indicated she had heard enough and led us into a room that was filled with long, sequined dresses. She placed me in a fitting room and carried in seven gowns to try, each one a different color and fabric.

Another woman, dressed more like a waitress than a sales clerk, followed her into the fitting room, and without uttering a word insisted on helping me dress. I hadn't had anyone help me dress since I was a tiny girl. I didn't feel particularly comfortable with this stranger seeing me in my bra and panties, but she never gave me a chance to protest. As soon as I was zipped and b.u.t.toned into a gown, she would start drawing pins from a small red cus.h.i.+on strapped to her arm and placing them along the seams of the dress. When she was done, she positioned me directly in front of the mirror and stepped back so everyone, especially the woman in the navy suit, could see.

Martha Ann gasped, seeing each new gown on my body. "Oh, that one's it! Pick that one!"

But my favorite was made of pink moire, with wide straps that stretched across my shoulders and crossed over my back. It was gathered at the waist and had a soft full skirt. Teeny pink beads were sewn all over the bodice. It was the most feminine thing I had ever seen. I had never loved a piece of fabric as much as I loved this dress. Gloria Jean agreed. This was the one. She talked to the saleswoman, and then explained to me that a few alterations would be made and that the department store would mail the dress to my house in a week or two.

With the color of the gown decided, we walked downstairs to the shoe department. I hadn't thought about shoes, but Gloria Jean told the sales clerk that I needed a pair of two-and-half-inch heels, closed toe, peau de soie, and that they must be dyed to match the dress that was upstairs in alterations. I didn't care what Daddy thought about Gloria Jean being married five times. When it came to formal wear, the woman knew what she was doing. While the sales clerk slipped different shoes on and off my feet, I just sat there and smiled. I had never owned a pair of heels, let alone pink ones, and I had never had a man put a pair of shoes on my feet before. I couldn't help but feel like Cinderella, squeezing my foot into the gla.s.s slipper until I looked down and noticed for the first time that my toes seemed exceptionally skinny and long.

Gloria Jean told me to stand up and try walking on the carpet. She took one look at me wobbling across the floor and said, "Honey, you are going to have to do some practicing in those shoes before the prom, or I think you'll come home in a cast." Martha Ann was laughing so hard, Gloria Jean had to tap her on the shoulder to remind her she was in a public place.

We left the shoes to be dyed and made arrangements for the department store to mail the shoes along with the dress when both were ready. It felt kind of funny to do all this shopping and then leave empty-handed. Gloria Jean must have thought so, too, because we were headed toward the front door when she suddenly stopped at the jewelry counter. She turned toward me, lifted my hair off my shoulders, and asked what kind of earrings I was thinking of wearing, knowing good and well I didn't have a clue what kind of earrings I was thinking of wearing.

"Sweetie, every girl needs to sparkle on her prom night. It's kind of like a dress rehearsal for your wedding day. I think this rhinestone pair is the perfect finis.h.i.+ng touch, the piece de resistance, as the French would say."

"I don't know, I've never worn anything so, so sparkly before," I said with some hesitation, not really knowing how Daddy would feel about his baby girl sparkling with a boy and all. But Martha Ann just kept staring at the light dancing off the earrings as if she were under some sort of magic spell. I could tell she loved them.

"My treat; this is a special, special night," Gloria Jean said, and I left Loveman's department store holding a s.h.i.+ny, black shopping bag.

The three of us walked out of the store and onto the sidewalk, where we stood for a moment breathing in the fresh air and soaking in the suns.h.i.+ne. I looked at my watch and couldn't believe it. We had been shopping for most of the day. I had never shopped for anything that long, and I was feeling tired and hungry from the effort.

"You see, girls, shopping is hard work, and there ain't a man on this earth that understands that," Gloria Jean announced. Sensing that Martha Ann and I were needing a rest, she asked if we wanted to go back to the diner for a grilled cheese sandwich and a Coca-Cola before heading back home.

Not many things in my life ever seemed to happen just like I wanted them to, but this . . . this was pretty near perfect.

When the morning of the prom finally dawned, Gloria Jean took control of my day like some kind of military drill sergeant. She drove me to the beauty parlor to have my hair done and told the stylist to pull it up in a twist because she wanted everyone to see the back of my dress and my rhinestone earrings. She wanted four curly tendrils hanging down my neck for dramatic effect. Only four, she was very clear about that. Then she told another woman to scrub my fingernails and paint them a soft shade of Baby Doll Pink, two coats of color and two coats of clear.

There were no grilled cheese sandwiches and Coca-Colas that day. Gloria Jean said only salad, carrot sticks, and lots of water. She read in one of her lady magazines that if you drink eight gla.s.ses of water in a day, you'll lose five pounds and your skin will glow. She wouldn't let me out of her sight for fear that Martha Ann would sneak me a c.o.ke and some peanut b.u.t.ter crackers.

"Honey, you want to feel as light and airy as possible when you slip into that dress. I didn't eat for two days before I married Dwayne Dilbert. Heck, I fainted right before I walked down the aisle," she said, as though we should be impressed with her sudden lapse into unconsciousness. "All of that starving and for what? A good-for-nothing slouch. But Hank, honey, oh Hank's worth starving for."

She was right, because when I slipped into my dress, I felt more feminine than I'd ever felt in my life, if not a little light-headed. Gloria Jean zipped and b.u.t.toned me into place and Martha Ann shook the hem so the skirt would hang as full as possible. I stood in front of my mirror and stared at myself for five whole minutes. I wondered if I'd ever feel like this again, so I tried to memorize every detail of the moment. Then, yelling from behind my bedroom door, I told my daddy to close his eyes.

"No peeking, Daddy," I said as I cracked the door, "I mean it, no peeking." I crept out of my room and positioned myself directly in front of him. Gloria Jean and Martha Ann were trailing close behind, tending to my dress with every step. "Okay, now."

Daddy slowly and deliberately opened his eyes. He just stood there, staring, not saying a word, and trust me, preachers are never speechless. His expression grew big and then slowly softened. I think he even had tears in his eyes.

"C'mon, Daddy, what do you think?" I asked.

"Catherine Grace Cline, you are absolutely beautiful," he said, adding emphasis to every word. Daddy was always telling me and Martha Ann how pretty we were, but I had never heard him say it like that, so carefully. I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes. I couldn't cry, not now. Gloria Jean would kill me if all the makeup she spent the last two hours putting on my face started running off in a stream of teardrops. As I dabbed the corner of my eye with my fingertip, the doorbell rang, sparing me from any further embarra.s.sment. It was Hank, and even though I was used to seeing him almost every day, tonight he looked particularly handsome, like some kind of movie star. He was wearing a brown tuxedo and a soft pink s.h.i.+rt he had picked out to match my dress. And in his hand, he was holding a corsage made of tiny pink sweetheart roses.

"Good evening, Mr. Cline, Martha Ann, Mrs. Graves," he said. Then he looked at me and, like Daddy, he just stared. "Catherine, you look amazing," he said, then he gave me a kiss on the cheek and slipped the corsage onto my wrist.

Daddy took at least a hundred pictures while Martha Ann stood there giggling and making funny faces. Then Gloria Jean, who had stayed to make sure that every hair on my head was cemented in place, took another hundred pictures with her own camera.

"Catherine Grace," she said as she put her Kodak Instamatic back in her pocket, "you look prettier than any bride ever could, and I've got the pictures to prove it." She gave me such a tight hug that I thought she was going to wrinkle the dress she had so meticulously pressed right before slipping it onto my body.

By the time Hank and I got to the school, the band was already playing, and it looked like the entire senior cla.s.s was crowded onto the dance floor. The gym was decorated with balloons and crepe paper and tiny white lights. It didn't even look like the same place where I had spent so many hours doing sit-ups and pull-ups in the ridiculous hope of pa.s.sing the Presidential Fitness Test. I had to hand it to Ruthie Morgan: all that time spent perfecting her homemaking skills had really paid off as chairman of the decorating committee. This was the best that the Ringgold High gymnasium had ever looked.

Hank and I said a quick h.e.l.lo to Mrs. Gulbenk, who was guarding the punch her tenth-grade home economics cla.s.s had made as a gift to the graduating seniors. "Are there any tomatoes in that punch bowl, Mrs. Gulbenk?" Hank said with such an adorable smile that she could only blush.

We joined our cla.s.smates out on the dance floor. The only time we took a break was so I could reapply my lipstick. Gloria Jean had given me very strict orders about when and how to reapply my lipstick, and I was not about to let her down. "Line, apply, pat. Line, apply, pat." I kept saying to myself for fear that if I did something out of order, I would come out of the bathroom looking more like a clown than a girl pretending she was Cinderella.

We were having so much fun that we almost forgot to have our official photo taken. Daddy and Gloria Jean had snapped plenty at home, but I wanted a photograph taken under the rainbow Ruthie Morgan had made with balloons and tissue-paper flowers. I grabbed Hank's hand and dragged him off the dance floor. We were making our way through the crowd toward the photographer when Trisha Munger, senior cla.s.s president, stepped onto the stage and tapped on the microphone.

"Welcome, Senior Cla.s.s of 1972. It's that time we've all been waiting for, the announcement of this year's King and Queen of the Senior Prom. Are you ready, Ringgold Tigers?" she shouted, more as a cheer than a question.

I knew Hank would be crowned King of the Prom Court. Everyone knew that. And I never expected to be Queen; in fact, no one expected that. The queen was, as I predicted, Sh.e.l.ley Hatfield. Everyone let out a loud tiger roar, including me. It was hard for me not to like Sh.e.l.ley. If it hadn't been for her, Hank and I would never have gotten together in the first place. And even though she was captain of the cheerleading squad, she never acted better than anybody else. But when I saw the two of them standing on the stage, I realized how truly perfect they looked together. I had played with my Barbie dolls long enough to know that now I was looking at the real thing. Hank was Ken and Sh.e.l.ley was his Barbie. And in that moment, it hit me. Sh.e.l.ley was the kind of girl Hank needed.

He deserved a wife who would admire him, dote on him, and grow his tomatoes. The future wasn't just about my dreams; it was as much about his, too. His dreams were just as important as mine, even if I couldn't understand them. All of a sudden, my heart began to hurt.

The band started to play "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?" and even though I knew the Bee Gees hadn't written that song with me in mind, it sure felt like they had. I held Hank closer than ever, somehow knowing this would be the last time we would ever dance together. I pulled my mouth close to his ear and whispered, "You looked great up there, Hank . . . you and Sh.e.l.ley. You two look like you were made for each other."

"Catherine Grace, you are my girl, my only girl," he said softly.

His only girl, the one, the one and only. If that was true, I thought to myself, trying to absorb Hank's words while the music was pounding in my head, then I would have no choice but to marry him. Mrs. Hank Blankens.h.i.+p would be my destiny, my obligation. Truth be told, I had been worrying for a long time that Hank believed I was his one and only girl, but now I panicked.

"I don't know about that, Hank. I'm not sure there is an only. I mean Gloria Jean says that-"

"Don't tell me you believe anything that crazy old lady says," Hank interrupted, with a grin on his face. But I didn't think he was funny.

"Hank, she's not crazy," I snapped. "You don't know what you're talking about. Gloria Jean is an amazing woman who knows more about love than you'll ever be able to comprehend."