Clay's Quilt by Silas House Read Free Book Online Page A

irritated.
    â€œGeneva, come do this,” she yelled to Dreama’s cousin.
    Dreama looked at the ceiling and tried to hold still for Geneva. “Where’s Clay at, Easter?” she asked. “Bring him in here to me.”
    â€œClay can’t come back in here, Dreama. Not in the dressing room.” Easter stood at the small stained-glass window on the outside wall of the room, watching the colors of the glass grow distorted in the streams of rain that ran down it. Imprinted in the glass were the words 1 CORINTHIANS 13, which Easter thought was fitting, since the room served as a dressing room for brides just as often as for people getting ready for their baptisms. Used to be everybody got baptized in the river, which Easter thought was so much prettier, but now they only did that in the summer. In the winter they used the baptism tank behind the pulpit, which had warm water and a painted mural of a blue river behind it.
    â€œLord God, Geneva, have you got em buttoned?” Dreama asked. “Now I’m bout to pee.”
    â€œWell, you’ll just have to hold it, Dreama Marie,” Easter said. She felt anxious and sweaty, the way she sometimes felt just before something was revealed to her. She was aware of the possessed rain outside and hoped that Anneth wouldn’t appear today. Not today.
    â€œGet Clay in here,” Dreama said, and stomped her little foot. “I ain’t seen him all day and I want to see him once more before I do this.”
    Easter shook her head and ran her hand down the side of Dreama’s heart-shaped face. “If you wasn’t so pretty, I could refuse you. Geneva, run out there and see if you can find Clay.”
    Dreama twirled around with her arms out to her sides. “Easter, do I look a sight?”
    â€œNo, baby. You the prettiest thing I ever seen,” Easter said.
    â€œLord have mercy,” Dreama said loudly, and pinched her cheeks for more color. “If I had a cigarette, I’d fire it right up, I’m so nervous, and I don’t even smoke.”
    â€œDon’t talk about smoking in the church house, Dreama Marie.”
    From the sanctuary they could hear the sound of the fiddler playing “When You Say Nothing at All.” Ever since Dreama watched Princess Diana get married on television, she had dreamed of having violins play Pachelbel’s Canon in D at her wedding, but she had finally settled for a fiddler playing old mountain ballads and country songs. Everybody else said it was crazy not to have a pianist, but this was the one thing Dreama stood firm on.
    â€œClay’s coming,” Geneva announced, rushing back in. “He looks so good I wish he wasn’t my cousin.”
    Dreama had made Darry go and personally ask Clay to be hisbest man. Darry had complained that his brother ought to have this honor, but Dreama had cried and pouted. She had reminded Darry that his own brother had run off to Jellico, Tennessee, and gotten married by a justice of the peace in an IGA and he hadn’t even asked Darry to go and be a witness. Darry had gone to Clay’s, where they sat out on the back porch and drank three or four beers, watching the river flow by, and Darry had shuffled his feet before asking Clay what he thought about being his best man. Dreama had always wanted them to be friends and was always trying to push them together.
    When Clay came in, Dreama cried out like she hadn’t seen him in ages. Seeing her in her wedding gown, Clay felt like crying. Memories encircled him, poking their fingers in his ribs. He never would have guessed that things would turn out like they had, that Dreama would fall in love so quick and so hard and get married before he even had a real girlfriend. Looking at Dreama, Clay felt very old.
    Dreama pushed him back to the corner of the room, where no one could hear them talking. She straightened his bow tie and picked lint off his jacket, never meeting his eyes.