“Mr. and Mrs. Driskell, I’m so pleased to meet you,” Geoff said. “And I’m equally happy to meet you as well, Mrs. Collins.”
Dear Pearl looked at him, then made a farting sound with her mouth.
The young man soldiered on. “Belle is expecting our first child, so we’re getting married Thursday morning at the Chicasetta courthouse.”
At those words, Miss Rose gave a cry, and Dear Pearl stood. She looked with disgust at her granddaughter and the boy who was standing on the rug she’d braided. When she left, her steps were heavy on the wood floor. Pauline followed to the room she shared with her mother, after shaking her head dramatically; she was saving her body for the Lord.
“Say you is?” Belle’s father asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Boy, what you say your name is?”
“It’s Geoffrey Garfield, sir.”
“A’ight, then. But I got me a shotgun to clean, in case you change your mind. ’Cause I’m not fooling with you ’bout my baby girl.”
Uncle Root put out a hand: come on now, give the young man a chance. The damage was done, but Geoff was trying to do the right thing. Then Uncle Root suggested that the three males in the living room take a walk. See the property and chat a spell. So they did, and they stayed gone for over an hour. When they returned, Geoff looked very pleased with himself. Puffed up in some way, but Miss Rose said nothing, other than to ask, had he eaten?
While the men sat on the porch, Belle fetched the bacon grease can, then the skillet to fry the chicken her mother had been marinating in garlic, salt, and onions overnight in the new refrigerator she was so proud of. Some white flour. A spoon and some meal for corn bread. The bowl of fresh-gathered eggs. Baking powder. Sweet milk. A bit of sugar. Butter sliced and melted, because her mother didn’t make her corn bread with lard.
Miss Rose issued instructions and not much else. It was her way when she was furious, keeping her words to a minimum. Her blows were rare, but dangerous when they arrived, and defense was never an option. Stay silent until the storm passed. Her children had learned that was best. The corn bread was out of the oven and cooling on the kitchen table before Miss Rose had her say.
“I was so proud. My child was gone be a schoolteacher. That was something I could finally talk about after church, ’cause I had one boy on the chain gang, and another always running after some fast-tailed gal. But I guess the Bible was right. Pride go before a fall, ’cause here you come with a big belly. Girl, don’t you know anybody can get married and shoot babies out they ass?”
Belle reached for a clean cloth to wipe down the already clean table. Nothing she could say would make her mother feel better, and Belle had her own problems. A baby coming and a boy she hadn’t planned to marry, but she knew one thing: soon as this baby came, she’d figure things out, and she still was going to be a college professor. Her life would be larger than this kitchen, that front porch, and even the field out front. She intended more for herself.
“I ain’t never knowed you to be color-struck, though,” Miss Rose said. “That why you change your name? The name I give you ain’t good enough?”
“No, ma’am, that’s not it—”
“That’s why you gotta call yourself something else? So you could get you a high-yellow boy from the City and walk around thinking you better than me? Let me tell you, Maybelle Lee Driskell, yellow don’t mean a thing. Yellow and some change will get you a orange drink down to the dime store. But the white peoples ain’t gone let you sit at the counter, ’cause somebody yellow is still colored. And now you gone take my grandbaby up north, you and this boy. Lord have mercy.”
Miss Rose sat down at the table and sighed, and then stuck the knife into the corn bread. As she cut generous, even slices, she told her daughter, go get her daddy and them. Food was ready, but be sure to tell Geoff, wash his hands at the pump outside. Just ’cause he was in the country didn’t mean he could act any kind of way.
That Thursday, Geoff wore a black suit to the courthouse. Belle was dressed in a pink silk chemise purchased by her great-uncle, who had brought her a bouquet of white roses, and her father was the first to shake the hand of the groom, who couldn’t stop smiling.
The ceremony had been a short event, a few words pronounced by a white judge, but there was a picnic back at the house. It was a big, noisy affair that included six chickens fried by Miss Rose, a hog barbecued by Belle’s daddy, many bowls of potato salad and greens, homemade light bread, various cakes and pies provided by the other relatives and the sisters of Red Mound Church, and unnumbered quart jars of moonshine. The celebration lasted well into the evening, as if this weren’t a shotgun wedding in the middle of the week, but a joyful something planned well in advance.