Sayeth
by Diane Payne


     "Brace yourself, it's time to meet the parents," Reed laughs as they enter the driveway.
     "I thought they'd be out here waving."
     "That's weird. Their car's gone."
     Amy's heard about the house, seen pictures, yet it looks different in person. The house was built by a grandfather back in 1830 and stayed in the family ever since. A true Southern house with high ceilings, pillars, and porches all around the house. Amy's parents live in a trailer in Ohio and she hasn't bothered showing Reed pictures of her family home.
     They walk through the living room filled with family heirlooms, Amy regretting this family visit knowing the mother will be testing her in subtle ways by pointing to furniture and silverware, asking her to get this and that, and not even knowing what these pieces are called, or which fork is for what. She should have taken Home-Ec instead of Auto Shop in high school, but their cars rarely worked and they only had plastic bowls because they didn't break.
     Reed finds the note that they're at a church function lying on the kitchen counter next to a bowl of fresh fruit surrounded by fruit flies. "What kind of church function do the Baptists have on a Saturday afternoon?"
     "They're probably at a funeral but don't want to upset us by using that word. Wonder if there's any booze hidden in the house." Reed searches through the cupboard then finds a bottle of vodka stashed way back on the Lazy Susan. "Bingo!"
     They mix it with orange juice and sit on the front porch. "It must have been fun growing up in this old house."
     "At times. All the cousins lived up and down this street but there was some kind of fall out between my dad and his brothers, and several of them moved. I always wished it would have been our family packing up and going anywhere else." Reed takes a long sip of his drink and Amy goes in the house and returns with the vodka bottle. "You nervous?"
     "Not really." She pours herself another drink.
     "You sure?"
     "Why, should I be? You worried they won't like me?"
     "They never like anyone I bring home. They had the perfect girl picked out for me. Her dad owns the lumber mill, they're Baptists, and she came out at the debutante all primed and ready to go. My mother had the newspaper pictures of her big coming out all over our refrigerator. Every morning she'd say something about how pretty Ashley was, how gorgeous she looked playing golf at the Country Club."
     "Did you two date?"
     "We went to the movies a few times."
     Amy senses a story not being told. "Did you have sex?"
     "I can't remember."
     "You just don't want to say."
     "I got her pregnant."
     "Shit. And you were in high school?"
     "It was bad. Real bad. She wanted to marry. I efused. We went to the clinic and never said another word. Eventually my mother took her pictures off the refrigerator. It was weird. Sad too."
     "Let's go inside. The mosquitoes are driving me crazy. Is there any music?"
     "Yeah, Barbara Streisand and Johnny Cash."
     "Put him on. It's too quiet in here." She pours more vodka in the glass.
     "Amy, don't get drunk!"
     "Don't worry." She refills Reed's glass with vodka and he adds more orange juice to both of their drinks.
     Reed can see she is getting nervous. She's talking faster, drinking faster, entering that mania state that he finds both appealing and dangerous, never knowing when it'll turn against him.
     Amy picks up his mother's picture of Jesus and the lambs and starts singing: Jesus loves the little whores. Red and yellow black and white, they're all precious in his sight. Jesus loves the littles whores. Reed pretends to play back up guitar while watching Amy transform his family kitchen with this little song and dance.
     "You know," Amy says, "Jesus probably would be a cool dude. He didn't carry all these grudges and lecture all the time like those other guys in the Bible. He loved everybody, even prostitutes. There's hardly any quotes of Jesus speaking in the Bible but there's these stories of him putting rose oil on Mary Magdalena's feet. He was a sole man. Maybe he had a foot fetish. I would have liked him."
     Reed gives her a kiss, hoping to calm Amy down. "I'll give you a foot massage. Sit down. I'll be right back." He returns with vegetable oil. "All I can find."
     "I'm not fussy."
     "You have great feet."
     "That's because you take such good of them."
     As Reed's oily hands reach higher up her thighs, they notice his parents standing in the doorway, speechless. They have no idea how long they've been there, and Amy's no Ashley, but she's not Mary either.
     "Sit down, honey," Reed's father suddenly tells his wife.
     Stiffly, she sits at the table. He takes off her sandals, pours the vegetable oil in his hands.
     Johnny Cash fills the house while they sit in the kitchen, father and son kneeling over feet, Jesus' picture back in place on the windowsill, introductions completed.



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© 2009 Diane Payne