Earthly Vows (2 page)

“I’ll admit that I was interested. I don’t know why, though, other than the fact that I’ve been feeling weary lately. You’re
right, Nazareth is weighing on me.”

“Do you think Oklahoma City would be any different?”

“My past followed me into Nazareth, Fern.”

“Everybody has a past.”

Everyone except Fern, he thought. “Can we visit the church first, and then condemn it?”

“This isn’t like you, to try and uproot us without talking to me.”

“Isn’t that what we’re doing now, talking?”

“If I would have known—is that what Gracie’s letter was about? Did you know that we were coming here to size up a new parish?”

“I’m as surprised as you. But, yes, Gracie hinted in his letter. Didn’t I show you his letter?” The minute he said it, she
had him pegged.

“You didn’t show it to me.”

“I only met with Dr. Flauvert today because Gracie asked me to meet him.” He put the lavender box between them on the bed.
“Dr. Flauvert asked me to give this to you. It belonged to his daughter, Ellie.”

“I have
Jane Eyre
.” She turned the book over, glanced at the cover.

“It’s signed by the author, Fern. And his daughter has passed away.”

Fern opened the book to the title page. “He gave this to me?”

“Gracie told him what a fan you are of antiquities.” Fern wiped her eyes. “This must have meant a lot to the Flauverts. I’m
sorry I’ve been so emotional.” Her voice softened and she leaned back into her bed pillow, more relaxed.

“There’s more. We’re invited to a dinner party this Friday at a hotel in Oklahoma City.” He sat next to her on the bed.

“You don’t have a good suit, not one you could wear to an evening affair.”

He was ready for that objection. “I’ll manage. You dress me. With you on my arm, who will notice the suit anyway?” She was
moving ahead with him. He could feel the momentum.

“Jeb, when I left Ardmore, I left behind all of those superficial people.”

“What people did you leave behind, Fern?” Fern’s mother, Abigail, appeared in the doorway.

“Are you ready for lunch, Mother?” asked Fern. “Fern and I have been invited to a dinner party in Oklahoma City, Abigail.”

“You’ll need a new dress. This is thrilling, Fern. A dinner party is always a good idea. Summer parties are almost as good
as autumn, a little warm, but after the sun sets, it’s all about the music and the costumes anyway. We’ll have to buy it ready-made,”
said Abigail.

“I didn’t say I’d go,” said Fern. Her face lost all color.

“Are you sick?” asked Abigail.

“I’m not in a dinner party mood. As a matter of fact, I’d like to head back to Nazareth Friday.”

Jeb pursed his lips and then said, “I’ve got a pastor friend taking my pulpit Sunday, remember, Fern? So I can rest? The ball
is perfect. We need a night out and the invitation is a gift from a great friend of Gracie’s. It would be an insult to turn
them down.”

Fern wouldn’t look at him.

Jeb’s confidence faltered.

“You know that Angel and I can handle Willie and Ida May,” said Abigail.

“Mother, don’t get involved.”

“Well, I only came in to tell you I’m dressed to go out. I’ll be waiting in the den. That is, if we’re still in the mood for
lunch.” Abigail left, but pushed the bedroom door back open behind her.

“Jeb, you ought to know I never include my mother in my plans.”

“She’s not really in your plans, Fern. She happened to walk in, and you can’t blame her curiosity. But I agree with her. You
saying that a party wouldn’t lift your spirits?”

She lay back on the white coverlet and turned her face toward the window.

“Fern, we’ve been living hand-to-mouth, mending our lives back together only to have them come unraveled again. We need this—I
need this.”

“You don’t know anything about these kind of people. Their decorum, Jeb.”

“Is that it? Are you afraid I’ll embarrass you?”

“That’s not it, and you know it. I don’t know how everything got so out of focus. This was supposed to be a simple trip to
my family’s house to get some rest and tell them we’re getting married.”

A laugh came from down the hall.

“You just told your mother, Fern.”

“Don’t tell Buddy and Lewis, Mother! I’ll tell them today over lunch,” Fern yelled. “Jeb, the people who go to these balls,
they don’t understand us. We’re the proletarians, they’re the blue bloods.” She never saw herself that way, even though he
did.

“Would you let me experience blue bloods for myself, Fern? I like the sound of my water glass being filled by someone else
for a change.”

“What I’ve always liked about you is that you don’t mind serving the down-and-outer, and during this godawful Depression,
there are more of them than there are those who only give to have their name printed in the society pages.”

“You asked me to take a leave from the pulpit so that we could finally know one another in a different light. No church around
my neck. So here we are without shackles and there you go slapping them back on.”

“Do you really want to go, Jeb?”

“Only if you go with me.” Jeb looked toward the open door and then kissed her. “You look good lying here in the afternoon
sun.”

She faked a smile, her eyes looking away from him. He was going to kiss her again until she pursed her lips in a patently
obligatory kiss. Her head dropped back onto the pillow. “Are you sure you’re ready to meet my family? They’re not like what
you think. Coulters come from wild stock.” She rolled off the bed and the white coverlet, dipped to straighten her stockings,
and left Jeb alone on the bed.

“I’m from wild stock too,” he said. She knew that. But she had never told him anything of the sort about the Coulters. “Tell
me more about this wild stock.” But she had already walked out of the room.

Angel ran her fingers across the collar of a tailored dress that hung in the back of Marshella’s Dry Goods and Clothiers.
She moved her drawstring purse up her arm and over her shoulder.

“So you live with my aunt Fern?” a teenaged girl asked Angel. She was a short fifteen-year-old named Phoebe, slightly younger
than Angel.

“I live with Jeb, along with my brother and sister, Willie and Ida May.” Angel pulled out the dress, as though she were seriously
considering shelling out the five dollars to buy it.

“Jeb’s good-looking, but his shoes look worn out. If a man can’t keep a good pair of shoes, he can’t buy you the things you
need,” said Phoebe.

Phoebe’s mother, Betty, had offered to take them window-shopping before meeting up with Jeb and Fern for a noon meal downtown.
Angel stopped short of referring to Jeb as Fern’s fiancé. She was sworn to secrecy.

“Are you an orphan?”

“My mother got sick, so my father sent me to live with my sister in Nazareth.” She no longer had to explain her story back
in Nazareth, so to rehash it made her irritable. “But Claudia had moved away, so we stayed with Jeb. You met him this morning.
He’s the minister in our town.”

“Where does Claudia live?”

“My aunt Kate sent me a letter a few weeks ago about Claudia. She said that she had finally gotten word that Claudia settled
in Norman.” Angel pulled off her hat. “Miz Abigail says Ardmore’s not far from Norman.” Abigail was Phoebe’s grandma.

“Would you look at this dress? I look good in purple,” said Phoebe.

Angel backed away from Phoebe. “Is it stuffy in here?” She put the dress back on the rack and said, “You keep looking and
I’ll go out for some air.” She left Phoebe holding the purple dress in front of her. Phoebe was not Fern’s best niece.

The sun bore down. Shimmers of heat danced over the downtown road, but a breeze cooled Angel’s skin. She breathed in the fresh
air.

“Aren’t you the pretty thing?” A youth sat behind the wheel of a deep blue Studebaker parked out in front of Marshella’s.
His blond hair was cropped short on top, a patch of bangs hanging over his left brow.

Angel glanced back inside Marshella’s. Phoebe was marching her momma to the rear of the store. Angel wanted to see inside
the Studebaker. “I’ve never seen one of these before.”

“Have a look then,” he said.

“No one would drive this back home.”

“Where’s back home?” he asked.

“Nazareth. It’s close to Hot Springs.”

“Is that in Oklahoma?”

“Who are you?”

The youth shifted in the driver’s seat and glanced down the street. “I’m Nash.”

“You don’t talk like you’re from Oklahoma,” said Angel.

“I’m from Boston.”

Angel rubbed the chrome on the door.

“Open her up. Have a look.” Nash smiled at Angel. He had good teeth, straight and shining out from a tanned face. He had combed
in a good deal of male hair ointment, which darkened his hair.

Angel opened the door. She touched the leather and he was smiling, so she said, “I’m going to have a car like this one day.
Is it yours?”

“I can’t lie. I’m the driver for the owner. He’s not around at the present, though. Want a ride around the block?”

Angel stepped away and backed under the shade of the faded store awning. Nash kept smiling out at her through the opened car
door.

“How old are you?” he asked.

“Seventeen. You?”

“Older than you. Not much, though. You look older, kind of like a girl I knew back in Boston. Her name was Ethel Fox. Is that
your name too?”

She smiled. Inside the store, Phoebe and her mother were looking over the tops of the store racks. “I have to go. I’m shopping
with … an aunt.” She didn’t want to explain her life all over again. If Jeb and Fern married, Betty and Phoebe would be like
family soon enough. She came out into the sunlight and closed the car door.

Betty stuck her head out the store door. “Angel, we’re trying to decide on this dress. Want to help us?”

“I got faint, need some air. I should stay out here,” said Angel.

Betty stepped from the doorway and felt her forehead, so Angel kept saying she was fine. Finally Betty went back inside.

“Your name suits you,” said Nash.

“There’s a drugstore around the corner. I could use a cold drink, what with the heat and all.” Angel pulled out the neck of
her dress and fanned.

“How convenient! I can drive you.” Nash jumped out of the car and ran around to open the door for her. She sunk into the hot
leather seat. “You have a nickel for the soda?” she asked.

“Don’t worry about money. Tab’s on me,” he said.

She would have to meet Jeb and Fern in a half hour at the Blue Moon Diner. “I can’t stay long,” she told him.

Nash checked his watch. “I got a minute I can spare for a girl like you.”

Jeb cranked up the Coulter Packard. Abigail never drove, not since Francis had died. Fern and her mother, Abigail, climbed
inside. Abigail complained of the heat, but Fern didn’t say a lot, and hadn’t since Jeb brought up the church offer.

“Ida May and Willie want to stay here at the house, Jeb,” said Abigail. “My niece likes doing for them, you know, making up
lunch and all.”

Jeb said, “Your brothers are coming to lunch today, as I understand it, right, Fern?”

Fern nodded and then let out a breath.

“My guess is that I could cook chicken out on the brick walk. Fern, roll down your window before I faint.” Abigail laughed.
“Now that’d be a memory here on the announcement of your engagement. I wish your father were here.” She stared out the window.
“Fern, you’ll have to get Buddy to give you away. Jeb, I don’t believe you’ve met Fern’s oldest brother, Lewis, have you?
I hope you marry in the winter. Oklahoma’s too hot this time of year.”

“I’ve not met any of her brothers, Mrs. Coulter.”

“That’s right. The last time Fern was here was for her father’s funeral. You stayed back home and sent Angel in your place.
I wanted so many times to take her aside and talk to her about her family. But what with the funeral and all, it never seemed
the right time.”

“Angel doesn’t open up too well with me,” said Jeb.

“You’re a man, though, Jeb. No offense,” said Abigail.

Jeb drove them off the Coulter estate and toward town. “Looks like some clouds moving in,” he said.