Chin Up, Honey

“Not really anything. Perhaps she didn’t believe me…or has no concept of the fact that people move around. Bless her heart, she apparently has no idea that the Five Civilized Tribes that made up Oklahoma in the beginnin’ were all from the South. She’s from Georgia. She ought to know how her bunch pushed the Cherokees out here and stole their land, then Sherman sent half the inhabitants of three states runnin’ out this way.”

She spoke with the correcting tone of a history teacher, which she had been. Now retired, Mrs. Jennings wrote essays on social and historical perspectives that were carried in several small-town newspapers.

“I always thought Oklahoma was in the South.” This was Mr. Berry’s mild voice. Gracie looked through the entry to see him standing in front of the open refrigerator. “Maybe she has us confused with Nebraska on the map. Where’s the Coke I put in here a while ago?”

“Well, I don’t think many people know exactly where Oklahoma is,” said Mrs. Jennings. “The weathermen all stand in front of it when givin’ the national weather. And with the sorry state of education in this day and age, no one seems to know that Oklahoma was Confederate during the Civil War. They just rewrite history all the time.”

“That was a long time ago, Mamaw. Western’s the style now,” came Johnny’s playful voice. He called his grandmother Mamaw.

Observing the two through the doorway, Gracie tried to imagine one of their future children calling her mother “Mamaw.” That would happen once.

There was so much food. Sliced ham, potato salad, a vegetable gelatin salad arranged on the salad plates, lima beans—Mrs. Jennings called them butter beans—and corn, candied yams, a cold plate of sliced tomatoes and broccoli and celery sticks, a basket of rolls and rich cornbread of a sort Gracie had not before seen, and several saucers of soft butter and something called chow-chow. Johnny leaned near her ear and whispered that she wouldn’t like it.

“Good mercy, Emma, you cooked like it’s Christmas,” said Mrs. Jennings.

“Well, it is a celebration,” said Emma, with a smile at Gracie and Johnny. Then, to Gracie, “Now, honey, anything you don’t like, you just don’t eat.”

Emma was up twice to get things from the kitchen for Mr. Berry and Johnny. Whenever Johnny ate over at Gracie’s apartment, he got up and got his own salt and pepper and whatever else he might need. She made a mental note to speak to him about doing the same at his mother’s home. She would need to teach him before he got to his father’s age.

Then Mrs. Jennings was addressing her, saying something about knowing a family of Kinneys when she was a child and lived in Washington, D.C. during the war. She meant World War II, Gracie realized.

“Myrna Kinney…I haven’t thought of her in years. I don’t remember her daddy’s name, but they were from somewhere up near Baltimore. I wonder if they could be some of your kin. Stranger things have happened.”

“I don’t recall a Myrna. My mother is an only child—she’s Sylvia Colleen. Her father was also an only child, and so was my great-grandfather. I don’t know about before them.”

“Oh, I was speakin’ about your father’s family. I must be confused. I thought your last name was Kinney.”

Gracie looked at the woman. “Yes, it is. Kinney is my mother’s name. My father’s name was Mercier. Paul Mercier. He and my mother divorced when I was a baby, and my mother returned to her own name. I never knew him.”

She prepared to answer questions as she watched Mrs. Jennings take this in, but then Emma was returning to the table with a basket of fresh hot rolls and saying, “Mama, lots of women started keepin’ their own names back when Gracie was born…or to do like Julia Jenkins-Tinsley down at the post office and use both names.”

“Well, I know that…but it plays havoc with genealogy.”

“Are you goin’ to keep your last name, Gracie?” Emma asked. “I know in business it is sometimes easier.”

Gracie saw Johnny’s eyes widen slightly. She replied that they hadn’t talked about it, but she thought just for the first months she might go by Kinney-Berry and then change all the way over to Berry. “What do you think, Emma?” Johnny’s mother had told Gracie to call her Emma or Mom, but Gracie wasn’t ready yet for Mom. She did want to start by building a bridge with the woman, though.

“That sounds very sensible,” said Emma. “And we are very excited about you two gettin’ married…aren’t we, John Cole?”

“Yes, we are.” Mr. Berry always seemed a little shy but really nice.

Gracie found Johnny’s hand under the table, and he smiled at her.

“I look forward to meetin’ your mother,” said Emma, smiling at Gracie in a way that required a reply.

“And she looks forward to meeting everyone here, too.” Gracie folded her napkin in her lap. “In fact, she wanted to come today, was going to fly down for the weekend. But at the last minute an emergency came up at headquarters—something about the French division. She’s going to have to fly over there in the morning. To Paris. She goes a lot. She’s the only one in their office who can speak French. My grandparents were always taking her over there when she was a child.”

She could hardly believe she had come out with all of that. She looked to see Johnny’s reaction, fearful that he would betray her lying, but he was scooping up chow-chow with a roll, as if it was going to be gone in a minute. And all of what Gracie said could have been true. Her mother did speak fluent French and for that reason handled much of M. Connor’s business in Europe.

“Perhaps I could call her,” Emma said. “I’d like to introduce myself.”

“Oh, she’s hard to catch when these emergencies come up like this. Her hours get erratic. And she might already be gone. She wanted to get the first f light that she could. She said that for the next few weeks she’ll be out of pocket but would be calling me to touch base.”

“Well…I can send her a note. Before you leave, I’d like to get her address. And when you speak to her, please let her know that I look forward to gettin’ to know her.”

“Oh, she wants to meet you, too. She’ll be coming out soon…right after she gets back from France.” She averted her gaze, and her eyes fell on her glass. “This iced tea is delicious. Might I have some more?”

As Emma rose to reach for the pitcher on the sideboard, Mrs. Jennings said, “That’s ice tea, honey. Iced might be grammatically correct, but it isn’t said that way down here. If you want to be grammatical, you could say cold tea.”

“Oh,” Gracie said.

Emma refreshed everyone’s tea, and when she was once more seated, she brought up the subject of the date for the wedding.

“We were thinking the third Saturday in September, if that would work for you.” Gracie watched Emma’s face.

Mrs. Jennings put in that perhaps the church should be consulted to make certain it was available.

But Emma replied that she had asked Pastor Smith that morning, and he had said it was available the entire month of September. “He also said that he is going to check, but he believes the Catholic Church will recognize your marriage in a Methodist Church. Just in case this is important for the future.”

“There’s the Episcopal Church here,” put in Mrs. Jennings. “It’s really pretty…dates from the twenties and has stained-glass windows on either side.”

“Episcopal isn’t the same as Catholic, Mama. Gracie is Catholic.”

“Well, it isn’t so different. They have priests and wear a collar and robe and all that hoo-rah.”

“Some Methodist ministers wear collars and robes and all that stuff, too. It doesn’t make them Catholic.” Emma looked at Gracie with some excitement. “The church is small. It holds about two hundred and fifty, maximum. Do you think that will be okay?”

“I don’t think Methodist ministers wear collars,” Mrs. Jennings interjected. “I’ve never seen one wear a collar.”

Gracie waited to see if Emma would respond to this comment, but she didn’t. Feeling a little uncertain as to which thread of conversation to follow, she said, “We are not planning a very big wedding. We just want family and a few friends. We are going to pay for it ourselves, aren’t we, Johnny?”

“Uh-huh.” Johnny nodded as he finished off a roll.

“Well, we are plannin’ on helpin’ you with the wedding,” said Emma. “We want to…and anyway, it is tradition for the parents of the groom to pay for the weddin’ ring, the groomsmen’s gifts, the bouquet, the mothers’ corsages, things like that.”

Gracie took this in and felt a little apprehensive.

“Okay,” Johnny said, reaching for the last roll in the basket. Gracie had never seen him eat so much. He loved his mother’s cooking. She had been trying to pay attention to the dishes and was going to look everything up in a cookbook.

Emma began talking of the various relatives who were likely to come into town for the wedding and making plans for booking a block of rooms at the Goodnight Motel.

“My mother will stay up at my apartment,” Gracie said quickly, thinking that her mother would come unglued at the idea of staying at the aging motel on the edge of town. Her mother was particular about amenities.

Gracie explained that one of her friends was going to give her a wedding shower. Emma proposed giving them a couple’s bridal shower to introduce Gracie to the family and a few neighbors in Valentine.

“That way you can get to meet the family before the weddin’ in a relaxed atmosphere,” she said. “I read all about it in one of the weddin’ magazines.”

Gracie was touched by the idea and getting more nervous by the minute about the woman’s enthusiasm. She felt it likely that things could get out of control.