Chin Up, Honey. Curtiss Matlock Ann
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She lowered herself on the kitchen stool to prevent further accidents. “Are you in your office alone?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Well, I have somethin’ important to tell you. I don’t want you distracted by Shelley or somebody and stuff goin’ on. Why don’t you close your office door?”
“It is closed, Emma Lou. What is it?”
She opened her mouth, then closed it. Suddenly the fact of Johnny’s engagement was too big and tender for words. She pressed a knotted hand to her chest, as her memory f lashed back through the years and she recalled telling John Cole of having gotten pregnant at last, after their years of desperate trying. She had done this same thing, gotten him on the phone and not been able to say a word.
“Emma?” he said with a bit of alarm.
“It’s good.” She reached for a tissue.
“O-kay.”
She imagined that familiar patient expression he got when he settled in to out-wait anything and everything. John Cole could have the patience of Job. It was annoying.
She swallowed, took a deep breath and got it out. “Our John Ray is gettin’ married.”
“He is?” His tone was more confused than surprised. It generally took John Cole some time to absorb news of such magnitude.
“Yes, he is.” She doubled over and stared through blurred eyes at her red-painted toenails.
“I just saw him yesterday mornin’.” He still sounded confused. “I took over some cases of oil for the Lawton store. We’re runnin’ a special this week, and I let him have a case that I got from the supplier as complimentary. He didn’t say anything about gettin’ married.”
“He talks to you about money and business. He talks to me about life and love. Besides, I don’t think he had asked her then. I kinda’ got the idea it all happened last night…that he got the ring just yesterday.”
“He just bought a car.”
“I don’t think there’s a limit on these things.”
The line hummed with disapproving silence.
She said more gently, “Our son is a man, grown and fully capable of makin’ good decisions for his own life.”
“Yeah, I guess so.” Then, “Who is he marryin’? Is it the one with the long, dark hair—Gracie? Is that her name?”
“Yes,” Emma said, with some impatience at his question. Who else could it have been? John Cole just didn’t pay attention to anything besides business.
“She is the only girl he has been datin’ for the past six months, at least…but I think he’s known her since way last fall, when she moved to Lawton and came into the store up there. They met when he helped her get her keys out of her locked car. She’s the really pretty one that you said looks a little foreign and has all that hair. She wears clothes like something out of a fashion magazine. Lots of black, like they wear up north. They haven’t broken up once in all these months. He’s brought her out here twice this spring to Sunday dinner…oh, but the second time, you were gone to the NASCAR races down in Dallas.”
That her son had only brought Gracie twice, now three times, in those months seemed a telling commentary. Gracie was special.
“I’ve seen them together a number of times,” John Cole said in a defensive tone. “I dropped by his place and took them to lunch at Wendy’s once. She seems a nice girl.”
“All of his girlfriends have seemed nice. Well, except for that one that had the line of earrings not only in her ears but in her nose and eyebrows, too, and it wasn’t that she wasn’t nice, she just seemed a bit obsessed with poking holes in her body.
“But Gracie is a woman, John Cole, not a girl. She’s a lovely, intelligent and solid young woman. I knew from the first time I saw her that Johnny was ready to settle down. I told you that, remember? Johnny never had a girl like her before. We talked about that. She’s young, but she is an assistant manager for the M. Connor store—her mother is an executive of some sort for the entire M. Connor chain,” she supplied, refreshing his memory with important facts.
He said, “I don’t know what those stores are.”
“It’s a chain of very upscale women’s clothing stores in malls from coast to coast. The one where Gracie works just opened last fall.”
John Cole avoided the mall like the plague. He bought most of his clothes at Tractor Supply or Wal-Mart stores. Emma didn’t necessarily see anything wrong with this; they had once seen a famous country-western star wearing the same shirt as John Cole down at the Dallas airport. The man had even laughed and pointed at John Cole. The shirt was a real nice Panhandle Slim, no-iron and all. Still, refusing to go into a mall did limit one’s clothing choices.
“You will probably have to go to the mall to get a good suit for the wedding.” Her thoughts raced on. “It may be that you will need a tux. I think Gracie comes from a right well-to-do family. The wedding may end up being real fancy. We might have to go down to Dallas to get you a suit.”
This was met with silence that she only barely noticed, because her mind was running along with possible contingencies. She went on to tell him that the kids wanted the wedding sometime in the middle of September, but were in consultation with Gracie’s mother and all their friends about the exact date and location.
Gracie’s mother might want to hold the ceremony in Baltimore, although the kids seemed to favor a wedding right there in Valentine, which would be the most practical thing. Johnny’s friends and family were all within driving distance, and most of Gracie’s friends were in Dallas. There wasn’t but Gracie’s mother up in Baltimore. Apparently Gracie’s mother had been divorced since Gracie was a baby, and her father was not in the picture. From what Emma had gathered, the only other family was Gracie’s mother’s parents, who spent a lot of time in Paris.
“I can understand if her mother would want to have her only daughter’s wedding up there where she is, but it will sure be a mess tryin’ to haul everyone up there. Your daddy won’t go, because he is never gonna step on a plane.” John Cole’s daddy said that if a plane broke a fan belt, there was no place up there for it to pull over.
“We could all drive up,” said John Cole.
The image popped into her mind, all of them in a long caravan, like a bunch of gypsies. She thought of the luggage her mother would require. Her mother practically took her entire home when traveling.
“Mama said somethin’ about a writers’ conference in September. I hope it won’t be on the wedding day…or if it is, that she hasn’t already paid for it.”
“We’ve got the big Convenience Store Expo up at Oklahoma City in September,” said John Cole. “The second week in September.”
To which Emma instantly replied, “I don’t think that is near as important as John Ray’s wedding. You can miss it one year.”
“I was just mentionin’ it, Emma Lou.”
She bit her bottom lip.
Then she said, “We’ll know more about everything on Sunday. The kids are comin’ for dinner—we’re gonna have a little family engagement celebration and talk over the wedding plans. I think it would be good for you to be here on Sunday, if you can.”
“I’ll be there,” he said instantly.
“Well, good.” Then, “John?” When heart-stopping serious, she used his first name.
“Yeah?”
“I think it would be a good idea for you to come on home. We just can’t do the divorce now. It would tear Johnny’s world apart at a time that is supposed to be filled with joy—his and Gracie’s special time. We need to just drop the