The Scent of Lilacs (21 page)

“Even DeeDee leaving? Even me having a baby with no father?”

“He has a grandfather and a heavenly father and a loving mother.”

“She. It’s going to be a girl.”

“Okay, she. And it was bad when your mother left and took you, but God used that to make me stronger, pray more, and move closer to him even though I lost the church. And a new baby is always a blessing.” He smiled. “God will want us to celebrate that.”

“Thank you, Daddy, for not being ashamed of me.”

“Ashamed? Never. I’m proud of you for having the courage to come home and let us help you.” He hugged her again before they went on to the house.

S
ince the heat had climbed into the living room with the morning sun and the fans were just stirring hot air, Jocie set up the card table and chairs in the front yard under the oak tree, where a little breeze was stirring. She brushed the dirt off some pretty rocks from Aunt Love’s rock garden to hold the yellow tablecloth in place and tried not to think about all those hours scrubbing floors and walls inside that nobody was going to get a chance to look at now. Maybe she’d take Leigh on a tour of the house just so she could look out the sparkling windows.

Aunt Love said no housework was ever wasted, that it had to be done sooner or later anyway, but Jocie noticed the sooner you did it the sooner you had to do it again.

Her father had spilled the beans to Tabitha about the party. As if he was worried about Tabitha not being there or something. She hadn’t gone anywhere since she’d come home. Still, her father said it was only fair to give Tabitha the chance to spruce up, since she was going to be seeing people she hadn’t seen since she’d left with DeeDee.

Jocie grinned. It was funny how much easier it was to think about her mother as DeeDee. She wished Tabitha had written her about that years ago.

Zeb watched her getting everything ready as if hoping she was putting everything out for him. Every once in a while she wondered if Wes had been right about the dog being his Jupiterian
buddy, Herman or Harlan or whatever. Zeb just seemed to know too much to be a regular dog. Dogs liked to jump in ponds and roll in cow manure and chew on bones. Zeb liked the bones, but he tiptoed around the shallowest puddles and didn’t even sniff cow piles. And every time she went out the door, he was sitting there waiting for her with his silly dog grin and wagging tail. She’d stopped even worrying about him leaving.

The daisies she’d picked that morning in Mr. Crutcher’s hay field looked perfect in the middle of the yellow table. The wind puffed a few of the green and yellow Happy Birthday napkins off the table. Jocie gathered them up and used the silver cake server Aunt Love had made her polish as a weight to hold them on the table. Two little silver serving dishes that had belonged to Aunt Love’s mother waited for the mints Zella had promised to bring.

Jocie sat down in one of the chairs to wait, but the minutes dragged by as if it were Christmas Eve. She looked at her watch. Still almost an hour before time. Her father was closeted in his room working on tomorrow’s sermon. Tabitha had taken up residence in the bathroom, and Aunt Love was in her rocker on the porch knitting something pink that Jocie fervently hoped wasn’t for her. She hated pink.

Jocie got up and moved the silver dishes and counted the Happy Birthday plates. She wished Leigh would get there with the cake. It didn’t look like a birthday till there was a cake. And presents. She’d forgotten the presents.

“Mercy sakes, child, what is it now?” Aunt Love said when Jocie ran up the porch steps. “If you keep fanning the door, you’re going to let every fly in the country in.”

“I forgot Tabitha’s presents.” Jocie stopped halfway through the door. “Can I bring out something to put them on? In case other people bring presents too.”

“Bring out whatever you want. Just don’t keep holding the door open.”

“Oh, sorry.”

“And don’t slam the door.”

Jocie tried to catch it, but it was too late. She yelled another sorry back at Aunt Love, who was muttering her tribulation worketh patience Scripture. Jocie heard that one a lot.

She cleared the pictures and the lamp off the oblong table in the living room. Then she fished Tabitha’s present out from under the cot on the back porch. She’d forgotten to buy wrapping paper, so she’d colored daisies and rainbows and stars on white freezer paper to wrap it in. The brush and comb and fingernail polish didn’t make a very big package, and it looked lonesome in the middle of the oblong table. Jocie moved her gift to the side to leave room for other presents. Wes would bring a book or something. And she could set the cake on that table if Leigh ever got there. Jocie looked at her watch. Still not time.

Aunt Love came down off the porch to pass judgment on Jocie’s preparations. Jocie waited for her to say “Put the rocks back” or “Go find a cloth not so bright,” but Aunt Love fooled her by smiling and saying, “ ‘He that loveth his brother abideth in the light.’ First John 2:10. I’d think the good Lord meant that to go for sisters too.” She held out a small, flat package wrapped in white tissue paper. “It’s not much, but you can add it to your gift table.”

“Gee, thanks, Aunt Love.” Jocie was happier than if she’d been getting the present herself. “What is it?”

“A brooch. A lady’s elongated face. I bought it years ago in a weak moment, but I never had the occasion to wear it. Perhaps Tabitha will like it.”

“I’m sure she will. She likes weird stuff.” Jocie put the present beside her own and then practically jumped up and down when she heard the motorcycle. “Listen, I hear Wes.”

“Who couldn’t? You’d think the sheriff would require him to get some kind of muffler for that thing.”

Wes rode his motorcycle up into the yard. “Looks like I’m just
in time for a party.” He handed Jocie a book wrapped in an old newspaper. “Poetry. I figured a California flower child would have to like poetry.”

“She’s going to be so excited.”

“Maybe half as excited as you,” he said. “Good afternoon, Lovella. You haven’t changed your mind about going for a spin on my hog, have you?”

Aunt Love actually smiled. Angels must have been sprinkling happy dust on them all. “Not yet, Wesley,” she said. “But who knows? I might surprise you one of these days.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised. Only honored,” Wes said. Zeb sniffed his boots. “Well, looks like old Harlan is still hanging around. I bet he never expected to be the answer to a dog prayer.”

“He’s not Harlan. He’s Zebedee. And he likes it here. He wouldn’t go back to Jupiter even if your old spaceship landed right in the front yard,” Jocie said. “Oh, look, there’s Leigh. I can’t wait for you to see the cake.”

“But does it bounce?” Wes asked. “That’s the important question to ask about one of your cakes, Jo.”

Jocie watched the 1959 Chevy crawl up the lane as if she could will it to go faster with her eyes. She couldn’t wait to set the cake by the presents.

When Zella climbed out of the passenger’s side of Leigh’s car, Wes said, “Hey, Zell, why didn’t you tell me you needed a ride?”

Zella didn’t bother to answer as she handed Jocie the bag of pastel-colored mints and two more presents, these actually wrapped in birthday paper. Leigh was carrying the cake in an open box to keep the icing from getting mashed. Jocie gingerly lifted it out and placed it on the table beside the presents.

Leigh handed her a box of candles. “One per year? Or do you want to make the shape of 20? You said Tabitha was twenty, right?”

“One per year.” Jocie stuck candles around the yellow roses. “The cake looks fantastic. Even better than yesterday.”

“I added a little more decoration after you left. That’s a lot of candles. I hope she’s got lots of breath to blow with,” Leigh said. “By the way, where is the birthday girl? And your father?” she added almost as an afterthought even as her face went pink.

“Dad’s probably still working on his sermon. He forgets to look at the time when he’s in the Scripture, and Tabitha is getting ready. Maybe I’d better go check,” Jocie said. “You want to come in and look at the house?”

“Oh, I’ll just visit with the folks out here. I wouldn’t want to intrude.”

Jocie didn’t insist. Maybe they’d see how sparkling the windows were by looking at them from the outside.

Tabitha was blowing on her freshly painted fingernails as she sat cross-legged on the bed in a puddle of blue and purple silk skirt. The white shirt she’d tied loosely at the waist looked as if it could have been her father’s. She hooked her still-damp hair back behind her ears and tried to smile when Jocie stuck her head in the door. “Am I keeping everybody waiting?”

“Everybody but Dad. I’ve got to get him next.” Jocie stared at Tabitha. “You look very California. I mean, that’s good. You’re beautiful.”

Tabitha glanced over at the mirror on the dresser and then away. “It was either this or my shorts and halter top, and I didn’t want to shock Zella.”

“Everything shocks Zella,” Jocie said. “You’d think she never watched TV or read the news.”

“Or maybe she likes to be shocked,” their father said from the doorway. “But I don’t think anybody is going to be shocked by you two unless it’s by how lovely you both are.”

“Tabitha maybe,” Jocie said. “The only person who thinks I’m pretty is Wes, and that’s just because he’s from Jupiter and doesn’t know any better.”

“Jupiter?” Tabitha frowned.

Her father put his arm around Tabitha and said, “Don’t ask.”

“You don’t remember that Wes is from Jupiter?” Jocie said.

“Jupiter, Indiana?”

Jocie laughed. “Is there a Jupiter, Indiana? Maybe that’s where Wes has been talking about all these years.” Jocie ran ahead of them to the stairs. “You two go on out. I’ve got to get the lemonade and tea out of the fridge. But don’t look at the cake till I get out there.”

“Are you sure it’s not her birthday?” Tabitha said as Jocie ran down the stairs.

“It’s more blessed to give than to receive,” her father answered.

“And obviously more fun,” Tabitha said. “Can’t I pretend to be sick or something and let Jocie carry my cake in here to me?”

Her father laughed and tightened his arm around her shoulder as he guided her toward the stairs. “It won’t be so bad. Just Zella—you remember Zella.”

“Is she still as quirky as she used to be?”

“Quirkier. And Wes.”

“I always thought he was from Mars.”

“Close. And Leigh Jacobson, who I’m told helped bake you a cake.”

“Who the heck is she? Am I supposed to know her?”

“No. She’s a friend of Zella’s.”

Jocie came out of the kitchen carrying two pitchers. “But she wants to be Dad’s friend. Real bad.”

Tabitha looked back at the staircase with longing. “DeeDee was right about birthdays. This is getting too crazy.”

S
eeing the cake with candles made Tabitha feel like the kid who used to run out to the end of the lane to wait for Mama Mae to show up with her birthday cake and presents wrapped in white tissue paper. Mama Mae always made her a new dress and gave her a book or a puzzle and a bag of chocolate peanut clusters with cream in the middle. She wished her father had remembered about the peanut clusters, even if chocolate did set off the morning sickness.