Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue was supposed to bring luck. But she and David didn’t have to depend on making luck. The Lord had blessed them by giving them love. She was just going to depend on the Lord to take care of them and to keep blessing them.
There was a knock on her door. “Are you all right, Leigh?” Chief Simmons called.
“I’m fine.” Leigh went to the door and opened it. She didn’t even look around to see if Edwin Hammond was gone. “I’m better than fine.”
The chief smiled at her. “I can believe that. And you don’t have to worry about that joker anymore. I’ve sent him packing. You just enjoy the day.”
“Oh yes, indeed.” One of the verses Aunt Love was always saying bubbled up inside Leigh so she just said it out loud. “‘This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it
.
’”
“You sound like a preacher’s wife already.” The chief laughed and turned to start down the steps. He glanced back over his shoulder to say, “I’ll see you this afternoon. Me and the wife are looking forward to the big event. If you need any more help before then, you just give me another holler.”
J
ocie was glad it wasn’t too hot as she carried her bridesmaid dress into the First Baptist Church. She didn’t want to make sweat circles under her arms on the beautiful dress. First Baptist was air-conditioned, so the temperature outside really didn’t matter all that much. Still, the weather being so near perfect was nice. As if the Lord was smiling down on them, celebrating the day with them. And she hadn’t once thought to say a good-wedding-day-weather prayer, but her father said the Lord sometimes answered prayers a person didn’t even think to pray.
Of course she wasn’t the only person who might be praying for the day’s big event. The Mt. Pleasant people had put the wedding on their prayer list months ago. They were a praying church. Jocie’s father said so. Said he could feel when the people were praying for him. That it lifted him up. If so, he might be floating today.
He might be floating anyway. He was that happy. And Jocie was that happy for him. And herself. It was going to be good having Leigh living with them. A little more crowded, but good. Jocie had never had a mom, but that’s what she wanted Leigh to be. Her mom.
Jocie still cringed inside when she thought about her last words to DeeDee. She should have just told her she loved her and left off the hating part. She didn’t always have to tell the complete truth. She could mash her lips together and keep some of it inside. And those crazy spiders not only crawled around inside her ribs, they started biting on her when she thought about her mother saying Jocie was like her. Jocie didn’t want to be like DeeDee. She wanted to be like her father. Or Leigh. She wanted to be someone who cared about other people and not just herself.
Her father had assured her she was when Jocie told him what DeeDee had said to her. “She said I was like her. Too much like her.”
“She is your mother,” her father had said.
“But I want to pick a new mother. I want Leigh to be my mother now.”
Her father smiled. “That will make Leigh happy. And me. But Adrienne isn’t and never was all bad. She has force of character. She always knew what she wanted and went after it. She always looked for her own answers. Those are good traits to have, and some that you share for sure.”
“But she hurt people doing that. I don’t want to hurt people.”
Her father put his arms around her. “Just because you are like your mother in some ways doesn’t mean you’re like her in every way. We all make choices, and a big difference between you and your mother is that she never made the choice to step into the circle of the Lord’s love. You have. You know about how the Lord can walk along beside you and lift you out of troubles. You’ve trusted your life to him. But your mother was always afraid she’d have to give up too much to have that kind of trust. What she refused to believe is that when a person turns over his life to the Lord, he is set free.”
“I told her the Lord loved her before she left. He does, doesn’t he?” Jocie raised her head off her father’s chest to peer up at him.
“The Bible tells us the Lord loves us all. God is love. For God so loved the world. The world pretty much includes everyone, don’t you think?”
Jocie had nodded and her father’s arms had tightened around her. “I’m so proud of you, Jocie. And so glad you are my daughter.”
Jocie was glad about that too. And she was glad about her father marrying Leigh, but she wasn’t as glad about the whole wedding business. People just got too carried away about the smallest details when they had wedding fever. A fever Zella had obviously contracted weeks ago. When Jocie came through the church door, Zella dropped the bunch of sunflowers she was holding and practically ran up the church aisle to confront her.
“My heavens, Jocelyn. Your hair. It looks the same as always. I thought Pamela was fixing it for you.”
“She did. She worked on it early this morning.” Pamela at the beauty shop had set aside the whole morning to do everybody’s hair for the wedding. She’d even offered to do Aunt Love’s, but Aunt Love said her usual bun would be fine. She’d just put an extra flower on her hat.
“Well, mercy sakes, she should have used hair spray.” Zella touched her own curls that were cemented in place.
“She did that too. Really. I almost choked on the fumes. But my hair just won’t hold curls. Tabitha says she can do some kind of little braids on top of my hair in the back and twine ribbons in with the braids. She found some ribbons the same blue as our dresses. That’ll dress my hair up a little.”
“I guess it’ll have to do,” Zella said with a heavy sigh. “Now don’t be doing anything to mess things up today.”
Jocie managed to not roll her eyes until she turned away from Zella. She’d promised her father she’d go along with whatever Zella said because this was probably the biggest day in the woman’s life since who knew what had happened.
“But she’s not even family,” Jocie had protested.
“Close enough,” Jocie’s dad had said. “And in ways this wedding, Leigh and me getting together, is a gift she feels she gave us. To be honest, without her prodding I might not have noticed Leigh and Leigh might have given up on me.”
“I think the Lord had more to do with that than Zella,” Jocie had mumbled.
“Could be, but letting her have such a big part in helping with the wedding is kind of our gift back to Zella. And you have to promise not to spoil her fun.”
So Jocie bit her tongue and headed back to the Sunday school room where Leigh was sitting in one of the folding chairs in her slip and stockings, fanning herself while Pamela fussed over her hair. “You’re gonna look just beautiful, honey,” the woman said as she pulled a curl free with the pointed end of her comb.
Actually Leigh already looked beautiful. Her cheeks were rosy and her eyes were sparkling. She was glowing all over. That was what Jocie told her. “You look fantastic, Leigh.”
“I don’t even have my dress on yet. Or my makeup.”
“You don’t need it,” Jocie said. “The makeup, I mean. I guess you’d better put on the dress. We wouldn’t want to have to print the headline ‘Bride Forgets Dress’ in next week’s
Banner
.”
“I’m so excited, nervous, whatever, that I’ve probably forgotten something.” Leigh slapped her forehead. “Oh no! I did forget something.”
“What’d you forget? Your shoes? Your veil?” Jocie asked. “I can run over to your place and get it for you. Tabitha’s not here yet anyway to fix my hair. She’s going to do some little braids in the back.”
Pamela looked up from Leigh’s hair. “I’m real sorry, Jocie. I did my best to get those curls to stick.” She reached over and touched Jocie’s hair. “You’ve got pretty hair, but it is bound and determined to be straight.”
“It looks great just the way it is, Jocie. You look great just the way you are. Don’t you worry about it for a minute,” Leigh said. “And I don’t want you to have to go back to the apartment. I can just not use it.”
“What?” Jocie asked.
“The fancy garter Zella bought me for the something blue. I had it out there on the dresser, but then I walked right off and forgot to pick it up. I’ve got Miss Sally’s hankie for the something borrowed and Grandma Wilson’s locket for the something old and my shoes for the something new.”
“Well, honey, you’ve got to have the something blue to make it all work,” Pamela said.
“And Zella will get upset big time if she bought it for you and you don’t wear it in the wedding. She wants everything to be perfect.” Jocie draped her dress across the back of a chair and headed for the door. “I’ll go get it. I can probably run over there and be back before Tabitha even gets here. Robert just left to go pick up her and Aunt Love.”
“Don’t run. You’ll get all sweaty,” Leigh yelled after her.
So Jocie walked and wished for her bike, but it was home. Still, it wasn’t that far and the day had a special glow to it just like Leigh. It was good to be out in the sunshine, to have everybody she met on the street smile and tell her they’d see her later at the wedding. Everybody in Hollyhill was acting as happy as her father and Leigh. It was almost enough to make Jocie reconsider eloping Jupiter style if she ever went crazy enough to think about getting married.
Jocie stuck Leigh’s key back in her pocket when she got to the apartment. She wasn’t going to need it. Leigh’s door was ajar. Jocie smiled as she crossed the yard thinking Leigh must have really been in a spin when she left for the church. To leave her door standing open.
Before she started up the steps to the door, Jocie looked over toward Mrs. Simpson’s kitchen window to wave, but Mrs. Simpson wasn’t there peeking out from behind the curtains. She was probably getting dressed to go to the wedding or maybe she was already at the church to stake out the best seat. She’d want to get a good view of everything and everybody.
The apartment was sort of dark after the bright sunlight outside. For some reason Leigh had pulled all the shades. Jocie frowned. She couldn’t imagine Leigh pulling the shades down and shutting out the sunlight. Not this morning. Not any morning. Leigh liked the sun coming through her windows. She kept her curtains tied back to let in the most light. But maybe she was closing out her old life to start her new. Taking her light with her. Or maybe Mrs. Simpson had been up there to shut up the place since Leigh was moving out.
It didn’t really matter. Jocie was just there to get the blue garter Zella had bought for Leigh. Tabitha would probably be at the church by now waiting to fix the braids in Jocie’s hair. Leigh had said she left the garter on her dresser. Jocie hoped it was still there, because if it wasn’t, she’d never find it in all the boxes sitting around.
Jocie pushed open the bedroom door. The light in the bedroom was even dimmer than in the living room. Jocie hesitated. For some reason her heart was beating a little faster and she felt the way she sometimes did when she had to go get a jar of beans or tomatoes out of the cellar for Aunt Love. As if spiders were about to drop on her head and snakes crawl up around her legs. Jocie wanted to turn around and run, leave it to the ghosts or whatever was spooking her, but then she spotted the garter on the dresser.
She couldn’t leave without that. What would she tell Leigh? That she was too scared to walk into the bedroom and pick up the garter? Then somebody else would have to come get it and they’d be teasing Jocie about it forever.
She wasn’t afraid of ghosts. She didn’t believe in ghosts. She believed in the Lord. He’d walk across the floor with her. He’d even run across the floor with her and she could snatch the garter and be out of the room before the spiders got her. Besides, Jocie had never seen the first spider in Leigh’s apartment.
She was picking up the garter when she caught sight of a face staring at her out of the mirror. Her heart bounded up in her throat as she whirled around to stare at Mr. Teacher Creep sitting in the chair by Leigh’s bed. He was smiling at her. Not a good smile.
“Well, well,” he said. “Look who we have here.”
She swallowed hard and found her voice. “Mr. Hammond!”
“Yes indeed. Mr. Hammond himself.”
The sound of his voice walked cold fingers up her spine. “What are you doing in here?” She tried to keep her voice from shaking but failed.
“An interesting question. But then you’re always full of interesting questions, aren’t you, Jocie Brooke?”
She didn’t care if he answered her or not. She just wanted to be out of this room and away from him. She could worry about why he was there later. After she was back at the church. She wrapped her hand around the garter. “I just came to get something for Leigh. I’ll be going now.”
“I don’t think so.” Mr. Hammond raised his hand up out of his lap. In his hand he had a gun. A gun he pointed straight at Jocie.
J
ocie couldn’t move. Even her breath froze inside her as she stared at the gun. It was a small gun. Black. Not new. The end of the barrel was nicked. But there was no doubt it was real as Mr. Hammond cradled it in his hand with one finger caressing the trigger. Outside a bird was singing. A car went past on the road. Inside, a fly was buzzing and hitting against one of the windows, and the clock beside the bed kept ticking. But time for Jocie screeched to a halt.
“You act as if you’d never seen a gun before.” Mr. Hammond laughed. It was a terrible sound. “I suppose that’s not something your reverend father has. A gun. He probably wouldn’t even shoot a snake. A bit unlike my own dear departed father who lived and died by the gun. They say a gun very like this one dispatched him to his just rewards.”
Jocie had thought she knew what it was like to be afraid. She’d been afraid during the tornado and even more afraid after the tornado when she saw Wes trapped under the tree limb. She had been afraid when Miss Sally’s house was on fire and they’d had to crawl out the upstairs window. She’d been afraid, but there had been something to do. Some action to take. A way out of the danger. The Lord had helped her then. She sent up a silent plea for help now.
Show me a way out, Lord.