Natalie shook her head. A soft breeze billowed the window curtains and she noticed the fragrance of clean air and watered lawns like a long-sought invitation quietly slipped under a door. “Il fait beau,” she said, meaning the weather was fine, and she got up from the sofa and walked outside as Opal squinnied her cautious eyes with suspicion.
She strolled into a stately night that was silent but for a few crickets and the hints of music and excited children at the fairgrounds a half-mile away. She could see noiseless semis on the highway, the house and yard lights of a far-off farm, the haze of the Milky Way in a vast society of stars. And then she heard the truck door slam shut at Owen’s gas station and she held a hand
in front of her face as its headlights turned on.
Opal was tilted half out of her chair to watch Natalie when Iona came up from the basement in her tight one-piece workout suit, the Tae Bo tape in her hand. Immediately Opal got into an upright sitting position and shifted her focus to a stern perusal of Iona’s scanty and revealing outfit. She said, “You girls today seem intent on giving mankind anatomy lessons.”
“You told me that yesterday, too.”
“Well, it bore repeating.”
Iona patted her face with a towel as she looked into the kitchen. “Where’d Natalie go?”
Opal pretended to wedge in a puzzle piece. “She said something in French about her beau. That’s a boyfriend, right? She probably just had to see him.”
Iona went to the screened front door and saw a red pickup truck idling in the middle of Main Street, its headlights on, and Dick Tupper happily leaning out his truck window to simper and chat with Natalie. She was giggling. Worried and in shock, Iona looked to Opal. “Are they together?”
Opal got out her scissors again and feigned disinterest by refusing to take a gander outside. “Well, of course they are,” she said.
“How’d they meet?”
“Who knows? Maybe through one of those newspaper pages where girls with no sense say come and get it.”
Iona hopelessly gazed out the front door again, a hand pressing her towel to her mouth as she watched. She sagged a little when she saw Natalie’s fingers lightly graze the truck’s chrome door handle. She said, “I have had a crush on him for so long. Ever since I was a little girl.”
She’d lost Opal on that turn. “On him?” she asked. “That’s impossible!”
Iona sighed. “I know it is. But you can dream.”
“Owen and Pierre lurched out of the gas station bungalow with Falstaffs in every hand and failed to notice Natalie as they tilted against each other and howled “I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You” in an imitation of Elvis in Blue Hawaii.”
Meanwhile, Mrs. Christiansen was hurrying down from upstairs with a glamorous white Empire dress hanging over both arms. She gushed from the landing, “Won’t she look gorgeous in this?”
Opal frantically waved her hands. She made hushing gestures. She pretended to cut her throat with her thumb.
Iona turned to Mrs. Christiansen. “Who will? When?”
Mrs. Christiansen thought. “Onetta. She so rarely wears dresses.”
And Opal lamely said, “When she goes to the hardware store.”
11
Sunrise in the Main Street Café. Wearing a spare pink waitress dress, Natalie helped Iona serve coffee and farmer’s breakfasts to a crowd of thirty or more fulminating men. She’d found a pair of squarish, dark-framed eyeglasses that made her resemble the singer Nana Mouskouri, so the farmers and truckers were mostly at bay, but still she was a little overwhelmed by the shocking noise of yelled jokes, banging mugs, clacking plates, and the hollered chat of morning larks in overalls who all seemed hard of hearing. Plus, a way-turned-up radio voice was giving farm commodities prices from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.
She was surprised by a tip left behind, but folded it into her apron pocket and withdrew with an empty coffeepot to the four-beaker coffee machine behind the counter. The din and commotion had quelled some and Iona took the opportunity for a respite, leaning on the pink Formica countertop and sipping a café au lait as she inspected the various species of maleness in the room. When Natalie rested on her elbows beside her, Iona said, “Look at my choices. Micah’s gotten hitched about twice too often. Orville’s homely and married. And Carlo Bacon is not exactly the sensible image of the Infinite.”
Natalie was taken aback.
“Quote I learned in junior college,” Iona said flatly. She considered a counter stool. “The Reverend’s handsome, but he’s a whatayacallit?”
“Un célibataire?”
“Right, a celebrate.” She sipped some more coffee and panned the room. “Too old. Too fat. Just a kid. Way too ugly. Way too stuck on himself. Blah. Another blah. And him? Maybe if I get drunk enough.” She sighed. “My town, Natalie. Party, party.”
The dull radio voice was saying, “Corn futures down a quarter. Wheat staying even. Soybeans falling fifteen cents . . .” as Owen and Pierre grandly entered.
“Bonjour mes amis!” Owen shouted.