Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen (9 page)

“Sweetie, every girl needs to sparkle on her prom night. It's kind of like a dress rehearsal for your wedding day. I think this rhinestone pair is the perfect finishing touch, the pièce de résistance, as the French would say.”

“I don't know, I've never worn anything so, so sparkly before,” I said with some hesitation, not really knowing how Daddy would feel about his baby girl sparkling with a boy and all. But Martha Ann just kept staring at the light dancing off the earrings as if she were under some sort of magic spell. I could tell she loved them.

“My treat; this is a special, special night,” Gloria Jean said, and I left Loveman's department store holding a shiny, black shopping bag.

The three of us walked out of the store and onto the sidewalk, where we stood for a moment breathing in the fresh air and soaking in the sunshine. I looked at my watch and couldn't believe it. We had been shopping for most of the day. I had never shopped for anything that long, and I was feeling tired and hungry from the effort.

“You see, girls, shopping is hard work, and there ain't a man on this earth that understands that,” Gloria Jean announced. Sensing that Martha Ann and I were needing a rest, she asked if we wanted to go back to the diner for a grilled cheese sandwich and a Coca-Cola before heading back home.

Not many things in my life ever seemed to happen just like I wanted them to, but this . . . this was pretty near perfect.

When the morning of the prom finally dawned, Gloria Jean took control of my day like some kind of military drill sergeant. She drove me to the beauty parlor to have my hair done and told the stylist to pull it up in a twist because she wanted everyone to see the back of my dress and my rhinestone earrings. She wanted four curly tendrils hanging down my neck for dramatic effect. Only four, she was very clear about that. Then she told another woman to scrub my fingernails and paint them a soft shade of Baby Doll Pink, two coats of color and two coats of clear.

There were no grilled cheese sandwiches and Coca-Colas that day. Gloria Jean said only salad, carrot sticks, and lots of water. She read in one of her lady magazines that if you drink eight glasses of water in a day, you'll lose five pounds and your skin will glow. She wouldn't let me out of her sight for fear that Martha Ann would sneak me a Coke and some peanut butter crackers.

“Honey, you want to feel as light and airy as possible when you slip into that dress. I didn't eat for two days before I married Dwayne Dilbert. Heck, I fainted right before I walked down the aisle,” she said, as though we should be impressed with her sudden lapse into unconsciousness. “All of that starving and for what? A good-for-nothing slouch. But Hank, honey, oh Hank's worth starving for.”

She was right, because when I slipped into my dress, I felt more feminine than I'd ever felt in my life, if not a little light-headed. Gloria Jean zipped and buttoned me into place and Martha Ann shook the hem so the skirt would hang as full as possible. I stood in front of my mirror and stared at myself for five whole minutes. I wondered if I'd ever feel like this again, so I tried to memorize every detail of the moment. Then, yelling from behind my bedroom door, I told my daddy to close his eyes.

“No peeking, Daddy,” I said as I cracked the door, “I mean it, no peeking.” I crept out of my room and positioned myself directly in front of him. Gloria Jean and Martha Ann were trailing close behind, tending to my dress with every step. “Okay, now.”

Daddy slowly and deliberately opened his eyes. He just stood there, staring, not saying a word, and trust me, preachers are never speechless. His expression grew big and then slowly softened. I think he even had tears in his eyes.

“C'mon, Daddy, what do you think?” I asked.

“Catherine Grace Cline, you are absolutely beautiful,” he said, adding emphasis to every word. Daddy was always telling me and Martha Ann how pretty we were, but I had never heard him say it like that, so carefully. I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes. I couldn't cry, not now. Gloria Jean would kill me if all the makeup she spent the last two hours putting on my face started running off in a stream of teardrops. As I dabbed the corner of my eye with my fingertip, the doorbell rang, sparing me from any further embarrassment. It was Hank, and even though I was used to seeing him almost every day, tonight he looked particularly handsome, like some kind of movie star. He was wearing a brown tuxedo and a soft pink shirt he had picked out to match my dress. And in his hand, he was holding a corsage made of tiny pink sweetheart roses.

“Good evening, Mr. Cline, Martha Ann, Mrs. Graves,” he said. Then he looked at me and, like Daddy, he just stared. “Catherine, you look amazing,” he said, then he gave me a kiss on the cheek and slipped the corsage onto my wrist.

Daddy took at least a hundred pictures while Martha Ann stood there giggling and making funny faces. Then Gloria Jean, who had stayed to make sure that every hair on my head was cemented in place, took another hundred pictures with her own camera.

“Catherine Grace,” she said as she put her Kodak Instamatic back in her pocket, “you look prettier than any bride ever could, and I've got the pictures to prove it.” She gave me such a tight hug that I thought she was going to wrinkle the dress she had so meticulously pressed right before slipping it onto my body.

By the time Hank and I got to the school, the band was already playing, and it looked like the entire senior class was crowded onto the dance floor. The gym was decorated with balloons and crepe paper and tiny white lights. It didn't even look like the same place where I had spent so many hours doing sit-ups and pull-ups in the ridiculous hope of passing the Presidential Fitness Test. I had to hand it to Ruthie Morgan: all that time spent perfecting her homemaking skills had really paid off as chairman of the decorating committee. This was the best that the Ringgold High gymnasium had ever looked.

Hank and I said a quick hello to Mrs. Gulbenk, who was guarding the punch her tenth-grade home economics class had made as a gift to the graduating seniors. “Are there any tomatoes in that punch bowl, Mrs. Gulbenk?” Hank said with such an adorable smile that she could only blush.

We joined our classmates out on the dance floor. The only time we took a break was so I could reapply my lipstick. Gloria Jean had given me very strict orders about when and how to reapply my lipstick, and I was not about to let her down. “Line, apply, pat. Line, apply, pat.” I kept saying to myself for fear that if I did something out of order, I would come out of the bathroom looking more like a clown than a girl pretending she was Cinderella.

We were having so much fun that we almost forgot to have our official photo taken. Daddy and Gloria Jean had snapped plenty at home, but I wanted a photograph taken under the rainbow Ruthie Morgan had made with balloons and tissue-paper flowers. I grabbed Hank's hand and dragged him off the dance floor. We were making our way through the crowd toward the photographer when Trisha Munger, senior class president, stepped onto the stage and tapped on the microphone.

“Welcome, Senior Class of 1972. It's that time we've all been waiting for, the announcement of this year's King and Queen of the Senior Prom. Are you ready, Ringgold Tigers?” she shouted, more as a cheer than a question.

I knew Hank would be crowned King of the Prom Court. Everyone knew that. And I never expected to be Queen; in fact, no one expected that. The queen was, as I predicted, Shelley Hatfield. Everyone let out a loud tiger roar, including me. It was hard for me not to like Shelley. If it hadn't been for her, Hank and I would never have gotten together in the first place. And even though she was captain of the cheerleading squad, she never acted better than anybody else. But when I saw the two of them standing on the stage, I realized how truly perfect they looked together. I had played with my Barbie dolls long enough to know that now I was looking at the real thing. Hank was Ken and Shelley was his Barbie. And in that moment, it hit me. Shelley was the kind of girl Hank needed.

He deserved a wife who would admire him, dote on him, and grow his tomatoes. The future wasn't just about my dreams; it was as much about his, too. His dreams were just as important as mine, even if I couldn't understand them. All of a sudden, my heart began to hurt.

The band started to play “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?” and even though I knew the Bee Gees hadn't written that song with me in mind, it sure felt like they had. I held Hank closer than ever, somehow knowing this would be the last time we would ever dance together. I pulled my mouth close to his ear and whispered, “You looked great up there, Hank . . . you and Shelley. You two look like you were made for each other.”

“Catherine Grace, you are my girl, my only girl,” he said softly.

His
only
girl, the
one,
the
one
and
only.
If that was true, I thought to myself, trying to absorb Hank's words while the music was pounding in my head, then I would have no choice but to marry him. Mrs. Hank Blankenship would be my destiny, my obligation. Truth be told, I had been worrying for a long time that Hank believed I was his one and only girl, but now I panicked.

“I don't know about that, Hank. I'm not sure there is an
only.
I mean Gloria Jean says that—”

“Don't tell me you believe anything that crazy old lady says,” Hank interrupted, with a grin on his face. But I didn't think he was funny.

“Hank, she's not crazy,” I snapped. “You don't know what you're talking about. Gloria Jean is an amazing woman who knows more about love than you'll ever be able to comprehend.”

“Right.”

I could tell by the way he said
right
that he was just humoring me, and I hated being humored. “Don't talk to me like that, Hank.”

“Like what, Catherine? I didn't say anything.”

“Oh yes you did. You said
right.
And you and I both know what that means.”

“
Right
means you're right. Forget it.”

But I couldn't forget it. Hank was loving the wrong girl, and I knew that now. “Just shut up, Hank. You know damn well that's not what you meant.”

“Catherine, what has gotten into you?”

“Gotten into me? So you can look me in the eyes and tell me that Gloria Jean does in fact know a whole lot more about love than you,
perfect
Hank Blankenship?” My voice sounded sharp and hateful, and I knew, with every word I was pushing Hank further and further away. But it was for his own good. He needed to be set free.

“God bless it, Catherine. Look, the woman got left five times. I don't think any reasonable person would think she knows all there is to know about loving a man.”

“Shut up, Hank. I mean it. Just shut up! No man ever left Gloria Jean,” I shouted in his ear. People were starting to stare.

“Yeah right, Catherine. That's why she's sitting in that house all alone making herself up to look like some kind of two-bit tramp.”

“Don't you talk about her like that. At least she's got the courage to live her life the way she wants to and doesn't just sit on some dairy farm making perfect little cupcakes for her perfect little boy.”

“Catherine, you better shut your mouth before it gets you into trouble. Nobody talks about my mama like that, you understand, nobody,” Hank ordered in this firm, unfamiliar tone. But I couldn't shut my mouth now. Down deep inside I knew I had been waiting for a moment like this, when I could prove to Hank he had fallen in love with the wrong girl.

“Nobody talks ugly about Gloria Jean. There were good reasons she got divorced, reasons I'd never expect you, some, some . . . small-town farmer boy to understand.”

“Farmer boy! What the hell do you mean by that? Listen, you're no big, sophisticated city girl like you think you are. Face it, Catherine Grace, you're a country girl and you always will be! It's in your bones.”

Now the tears were running down my face. I could feel them stinging my cheeks. I ran out of the gym. Hank ran after me. He grabbed my arm and turned me around so we were standing face-to-face. “Don't run out of here, Catherine Grace, like some spoiled little kid pitching a fit. Running away doesn't make it better, or haven't you figured that out yet, sitting on that picnic table licking your damn Dilly Bars?”

“Leave me alone, Hank.” I pulled my arm from his grasp. “I'm not running away from anything. I'm running to something better, something you know nothing about. Now go on, go dance the last dance with Shelley.”

I started running from the gym, not looking back to see if Hank was coming after me. He wasn't, but I didn't care. He didn't have the right to say those things about Gloria Jean. She'd been like a mama to me. He didn't know anything about true love or reaching for the stars. He was just a stupid country boy who'd rather spend time milking cows and playing a losing game of football.

I walked home that night carrying my pink, peau de soie heels in my hand, wondering if fancy shoes like these were ever going to feel good on my feet. Something kept pulling me toward Chickamauga Creek. I don't know, maybe Mama was showing me the way.

As I crawled on my hands and knees down the grassy bank, I could see the light from the moon bouncing off the water. The reflection was so smooth and pretty, it was like it was begging me to come sit by its side. I lay down in the grass and stared up at the sky, looking at everything and nothing all at the same time. The only sounds I could hear were the water flowing over the rocks and a choir of crickets chirping in the background. Something was speaking to me down deep inside, and I don't know if it was the Lord finally taking the time to answer one of my prayers or my mama sending me a message from above. I stood up, took the corsage off my wrist, and tossed it into the creek, letting the water grab hold of another piece of my heart and wash it away like it had done so many years before.

Hank and I didn't talk much after graduation, and when we did, we just argued about stupid stuff like whether or not the Bulldogs were going to win the Southeastern Conference or the right way to lick a Dilly Bar. It was kind of like we were little kids again, just annoying each other whenever we could. Henry Morel Blankenship and I were done. I knew that. He belonged with a girl who wasn't dreaming of her exodus of biblical proportions.