Georgia Bottoms Read online

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  To the memory of my father, Roy Childress, and my friends Oakley Hall and James D. Houston

  1

  If only Eugene didn’t run on so long in his sermons, Georgia thought, a person might not have time to think about how hot it was in this church. Beads of sweat were trickling a very personal path around each vertebra, into the waistband of her panty hose. It was September, but still summer held Alabama in a death grip. Georgia did not give a damn about global warming, because she knew Alabama couldn’t possibly get much hotter than this. Although everyone said it was not so much the heat as it was the humidity, the heat alone was enough to drive you out of your mind. And then the mosquitoes would swarm in to finish you off.

  The only way to survive summer in Alabama was to sit yourself down sometime in April and hold still until October. Or get out of Alabama entirely. Or follow the rest of the South into the embrace of the one true religion—A/C—with which the First Baptist and most of Six Points were still, at this late date, unblessed.

  It’s hard for outsiders to believe that even in the year 2001, there was a town so far from the interstate, so far behind the times that it had no cable TV, no Walmart, McDonald’s, or Starbucks, and hardly any A/C. Most people in Six Points were happy to lag a few steps behind the rest of the world. They liked sitting out on their porches, cooling themselves with a glass of iced tea. They liked having something as dependable as the heat to complain about.

  Georgia’s house was the only one on Magnolia Street with central A/C. Neither neighbor on either side had it. The Pinsons two doors down had a window unit for their bedroom, but the Simpsons didn’t have any A/C at all, nor the Wallers, nor even Billy Russum on the corner of Cedar with his flashy Lowndes County girlfriend Dawn, who you’d think would be the first one to want it. No, in Six Points there was a general opinion that A/C only makes a hot summer hotter, because every time you go out in the heat, you’re just counting the moments until you get to go back in where it’s cool. Judge Barnett always said A/C is for people who don’t have the patience to be hot.

  Georgia thought that was ridiculous and they were all idiots. A/C was the greatest invention in the history of mankind. In July and August she kept her thermostat on 68, kept that big Carrier plant in the backyard humming like a dynamo. She wished she could bolt out of this sweltering church right this moment, go home and crank the thermostat down so low she’d feel a chill and need a blanket for her feet. She would turn on her propane firelog and have a nice cup of tea while the rest of town was perspiring into its Fruit of the Looms.

  Could she crank the thermostat low enough to give herself frostbite? If they had to amputate her fingers and toes, could she get a job operating a computer with one of those headset things you blow into?

  “If we take an interpretational view, we begin to realize,” came the wandering monotone of Eugene Hendrix, “why Paul’s attitude in his answer to the Ephesians is one of puzzlement, almost as if he is thrown into doubt by their lack of faith. As if their agnosticism is a contagious disease, and he has come down with a bad case of it himself.”

  If only Eugene didn’t throw around those ten-dollar seminary words, “agnosticism” and “interpretational” and such. He was not bad to look at, even handsome in his nervous, bookish way, but as a preacher he could use a good dose of Shut Up and Sit Down. His little cowlick was cute, standing straight up. The John Lennon spectacles reinforced the boyish aspect. The problem was that his sermons tended to drone on and on until Georgia felt this terrible urge to rush out the door. If only Eugene would thumb through the Reader’s Digest once in a while, find something halfway witty or clever to keep a person awake, not intimately focused on the rivulet trickling down the valleys of her silky underthings.

  Georgia’s mother had a saying on the subject of sweating in church. Sweating like a… Georgia flipped to that card in her mental Rolodex, but it came up blank. She was turning up more of these blank cards lately. Was that a normal sign of aging?… Or beginning to age?… She was hardly old enough to start worrying about that. There was not a trace of gray in her naturally blond and beautiful hair. Thirty-four is not even old!

  But then—it’s not as young as thirty-three. And a good bit older than twenty-nine, the last age she remembered not thinking constantly about her age.

  She had noticed the trend in that department and it was not good. The numbers all seemed headed in one depressing direction: up. She saw how a person could become obsessed.

  Georgia had not quite admitted to herself that getting older was something that would actually happen to her. Just because everybody else did it didn’t mean she had to. Perhaps it was one of those things you could prevent if you ignored it hard enough.

  That was one secret to Georgia’s cheerfulness: she thought about the things she wanted to think about, and blotted out everything else. Another secret: she was the exception to most rules. A woman without a husband isn’t supposed to be happy, but Georgia was. A woman alone is not supposed to have fun… but Georgia had it all, and then some. Women are supposed to hate the idea of getting older, but Georgia knew she would be fine if it ever did happen to her. She would give up makeup and dieting, sit all day in front of the TV, happily eating peanut M&M’s. Hell, bring it on!

  Just not yet. She wasn’t ready quite yet. There was still a bit of juice in the lemon.

  She had plenty of time to chase the question out of her mind, while Eugene Hendrix took a detour around the subject of what kind of stamps Paul might have used on his letter to the Ephesians.

  There were plenty of things everybody believed in, but not Georgia.

  She never missed a Sunday in church. There had to be other doubters in the crowd, but Georgia was fairly certain she was the only one who attended every Sunday without believing a single word of it: not God, not Jesus, not the Bible, not one word of the whole fantastic giant marshmallow everyone else had swallowed whole. What a whopper! God talks from the sky in the voice of John Huston! Nails his son to a cross to save you!

  Yeah and I’ve got a bridge here I think you might like.

  Every Sunday morning at five minutes to ten, Georgia sailed through the First Baptist vestibule looking for all the world like a true believer. If that made her a hypocrite, so be it. She was in good company. Everybody else gave the appearance of believing, but in their day-to-day lives, she knew, they were no godlier than she was.

  She hugged and howdied her way to the fourth pew, seated herself among the believers. She bowed her head in a practiced imitation of prayer. She mouthed the words to the hymns in case anyone was watching.

  In Six Points, a woman had no choice but to go to church, especially a woman of a certain age who was as yet untouched by marriage. Otherwise who knows what they would say about you? (A small town looks sweet from the outside but not when you grew up there, not when everybody’s got the dirt on you.) Members of Georgia’s family had sat in this pew for generations, since before her grandmother Big Sue changed the family name from Butts to Bottoms because she thought it sounded more genteel.

  (Big Sue died before Georgia was born, but Georgia always felt grateful to her for the change. She was happy not to go through life as Georgia Ethel Butts.)

  Week after week, month after year, Georgia sat in that pew, upholding the good Bottoms name, tuning out Eugene Hendrix’s sermon to the best of her ability. She used those fifty-five minutes every week to think about her hair, her manicure, the dress in the window at Belk’s, the heat versus the humidity, the phone calls she planned to return and the ones she never would, the ever-lengthening list of things she wanted from life.

  Georgia was not a
bad person, really. But if it turns out there really is a vengeful God like in the Old Testament, he probably has a special hell for women like Georgia who use their time in church to make lists of their worldly desires.

  New dress, navy striped twill (Belk’s)

  New teakettle w/ whistle so I can stop almost burning down the house

  New shoes, Gucci, Aug. Vanity Fair

  New Orleans

  She noticed a stray beam of sunlight bedazzling the white collar of Eugene Hendrix’s shirt. On his neck just above the collar she saw a mark. You would see it only if you knew where to look—a little bruise in the shape of a flying saucer, or a kiss.

  Everyone else came to church to improve their souls and reflect on Jesus. Georgia felt certain she was the only one studying the hickey she had made on Eugene’s neck while he stabbed helplessly at the air with his big fat—

  A good Christian woman would not sit here thinking about sexual intercourse with the preacher. But how could she help it? It was just a few hours ago!

  It must be even harder for Catholic girls to keep their minds pure in church, with naked sexy-looking Jesus hanging right there in front of them.

  Georgia pictured Eugene’s face scrunching up in that earnest grimace as he reached the end of his efforts: a comical mix of pain and surprise, like a little boy whose toe has just been pinched by a crab. Georgia had to close her eyes to keep from laughing. One time she’d laughed, and Eugene pouted for a week.

  She was always so careful not to leave any marks.

  “Are we not every one of us filled with the same doubt as Paul, as Mary, as Jesus himself in the garden at Gethsemane when he let out his great peal of doubt—‘O Father, why hast thou forsaken me?’ Listen to that cry! Doesn’t it sound familiar? Don’t we all feel a little bit forsaken, every morning when we wake up?”

  No we don’t, Eugene. The congregation sat unmoving, and unmoved. Forsaken, my foot! Too depressing! Snappy sayings, little stories, easy lessons they can take home and turn over in their minds—that’s what the people want. Marshmallows, fluffy and light. Not this sticky theological molasses. The only one interested in feeling forsaken is you, Eugene Hendrix, and you really need to cheer up.

  Eugene in bed was much like Eugene in the pulpit: earnest, sincerely grateful for your attendance, but always wandering off down these unproductive side alleys. It took him forever to get to the point. You might think he’d have learned something from all those Saturday nights with Georgia, but the lovemaking abilities of most men were fixed in stone before Georgia got her hands on them. A man learns to tie his shoes one way, and that’ll keep him for life. He’s perfectly happy to shave his face with the same exact pattern of strokes, every day.

  Georgia could never be satisfied with just one way. She liked to keep her list fresh and updated. She liked to add new items from time to time.

  Normally in church Eugene avoided her with his eyes, but now he glanced directly at her. “Where can we find these moments of beauty,” he said, “these hopeful shoots of green poking up from the dry rocky desert of our daily lives?”

  Georgia answered him with her brightest smile.

  His gaze ran away from her, quick as a fish running away with a hook. It skimmed over the heads of the congregation to the plump shoulders of his wife, Brenda, in the second pew. Lined up beside Brenda were the four little Hendrix girls, stairsteps from ten years down to two, perfect posture like their mother, frilly dresses from the American Girl catalog. Brenda Hendrix’s shellacked Clairol-blond pouf was so flawless and stiff that Georgia wanted to throw a coin at it, to hear the tink! as it bounced off.

  Eugene was making cow eyes at his wife, so the congregation might think he meant Brenda was the hopeful shoot of green in his life. Only Georgia knew who he really meant.

  “The loving embrace of a family is a fine place to find those green shoots,” he said. “But family love, the love of our children, even marital love cannot be our only comfort. We must turn to the Lord. He wants us to give up our lives of sin, and search for a holier way to live. But do we do that? No. We keep right on sinning, don’t we? Every day we have to ask God to forgive us all over again.”

  Oh for God’s sake, Eugene, tell the whole world, why don’t you? Georgia’s thought echoed so forcefully that for a moment she thought she’d spoken out loud.

  The navy dress in Belk’s window had a slimmer waist and a deeper neckline than Georgia’s usual style. At least she had the figure to pull it off. Unlike Brenda Hendrix, who was built like a can of Campbell’s soup.

  When Eugene came over on Saturday night he definitely did not want to talk about Brenda. Once you got him out of his preacher suit, Saturday-night Eugene was a flirt and a big old tease. A sweet-talker, a smoothy. He looked sexy flung out on the four-poster bed in the black silk boxer shorts Georgia had given him for Christmas. He only wore them at Georgia’s, of course. She kept them for him in the seven-drawer highboy during the week.

  Last night he was there but not there. Staring at the wall, off into the distance. Georgia offered him a penny for his thoughts. He was worried about his sermon for today, he said. Trying to fit the pieces together.

  It was sad how hard Eugene worked on his sermons. Would the people pay more attention if they knew how he slaved over each sentence? Would they at least make an attempt to keep from falling asleep?

  You couldn’t listen to Eugene’s voice without drifting into that pleasant trance that can lead to… if you don’t… make yourself sit up and…

  Georgia pinched her thigh, hard. She blinked and sat straighter in the pew.

  “Take me, for example,” Eugene was saying. “If you want to see someone who’s been walking down the wrong road, brothers and sisters, take a good look at me.”

  Georgia clicked full awake.

  While she was dozing, Eugene had somehow wandered out of his sermon and up to the brink of catastrophe.

  A warning bell shrilled in her ear. Any confession from him would pretty much have to involve Georgia, would it not?

  Last night—he clung to her long past time for him to go. He pulled her in close, snuggling under the comforter, out of the arctic blast of the window unit.

  Then he answered a question she hadn’t even asked. “No,” he said, hooking his feet around her ankles. “This is perfect, right here.”

  Now he was staring down, his fingers gripping the sides of the pulpit, a fierce battle under way behind his John Lennon specs.

  Georgia had seen this look in the eyes of other men. Occasionally one of them lost his mind, fell ridiculously in love with her, and decided to throw over his whole life for her. (He always seemed to come to this decision without consulting Georgia.)

  She saw how this was going to go. Eugene meant to confess his infidelity right here in front of God and everybody. In front of Brenda and his lovely daughters and the congregation, he intended to declare that he loved Georgia too much to keep on living a lie.

  It was the same old story: middle-age fever. A man’s desperate attempt to feel young one last time before beginning his slow topple into the grave. But Eugene was only thirty-two years old—and a coward. He had to make his declaration in front of witnesses. Otherwise he wouldn’t go through with it.

  What he didn’t realize was that he was risking much more than Georgia’s reputation. One word could ruin a lot more than that.

  She had to stop him.

  A glance at Ava Jean McCall drowsing at the organ brought to mind a spitball, a word Georgia hadn’t even thought in twenty years. She opened her purse—yes she did have a straw from the Dairy Dog, a cash-register slip she could chew the corner off… aim for Ava Jean’s ear, startle her into producing a noise that would stop Eugene from making the biggest mistake of his life.

  But what if Ava Jean brushed the thing off her neck? What if she yelped, but Eugene kept talking?

  Georgia had to stop him. Before he had a chance to say her name.

  “There’s a heavy burden on my spirit, and
I need you folks to help lift it off me,” he said. “This has not been an easy decision.”

  Georgia rose from the pew. The quick way out was to the left, but she had to make Eugene notice her. She grabbed her large jingly purse and plowed the other way, toward the center aisle, forcing everyone in her pew to turn their knees to let her by. Geraldine Talby glared at her, annoyed.

  Georgia batted her eyes and concentrated on appearing woozy. She was a splendid actress. Anyone could see her face growing paler by the moment.

  “I’ve lied to you all, and I’ve lied to myself,” she heard Eugene say. “The more I have prayed over this, the more I’ve come to realize… I just can’t go on living this lie.”

  Georgia made sure she was well into the aisle, clear of the pews on both sides. She didn’t want to get hurt. Her eyelids fluttered. Her gaze turned upward. All the muscles in her body went limp. She collapsed in a heap on the carpet runner—a most convincing and ladylike faint.

  She heard screams, a male shout of alarm: “She fainted!”

  In every crowd there’s one genius, Georgia thought.

  She fell into a pose of prostration, one arm stretched artfully over her face. She felt thunder through the floor as people sprang to help her.

  The rules of fainting required her to keep her eyes closed, her jaw a little slack—not unattractively, of course, and just long enough to be convincing.

  Actually it felt rather nice, stretched out here on the carpet. A bit cooler than sitting in the pew. She hoped no one would try to splash water on her face.

  The real purpose of her maneuver would be obvious to anyone who’d been paying attention to Eugene’s sermon. Georgia hoped no one had been.

  One thing was certain. He wouldn’t be finishing that sermon today.

  “She looks all right to me.”

  Georgia recognized the serrated edge of Brenda Hendrix’s voice. She could feel the weight of Brenda’s shadow pressing down on her. She was glad she had chosen her most form-fitting sage green Ann Taylor suit. Even sprawled on the floor she must look fantastic, and that would be making Brenda sick with envy.