| |
Email this article
Souvenirs
The first time Ivy Webb went to Paris, France, she returned with a small painting of her and some man on that river that runs through it – the Sang or something like that. And, of course, the ring she kept shoving in everyone’s face. “Not an engagement ring,” she says to us, but you could tell by the way she batted her eyes and tossed her hair she wanted everybody to think it was. Something to keep folks guessing, I suppose, like we had nothing better to do than sit around speculating on her pitiful life. She used up most of her savings on that one wild hair and didn’t have nothing but a painting you could barely make out. But I knew there’d be a story somewhere behind the picture.
She kept saying that the man in the painting – the one that gave her the ring – was coming to see her. “A world traveler,” she said to us, “a rich widower from Chicago.” Bank president or something – she was a little vague on that part. Of course, we didn’t pry. Bad enough we thought she was lying, but to trap her in it wouldn’t be Christian. We’d have all been glad to just forget the whole damn thing, except she kept telling everyone the man was coming in on the afternoon plane to Nashville. Of course, it left us all wondering what kind of made-up mishap would keep him from getting here. “If she’s half smart” somebody said, “she’ll say he broke his leg back in Chicago. Or have him run over by a bus. Anything less, sombody’ll catch her in a lie. People talk.”
Sure enough, five o’clock comes and goes with no sign of him. A cool breeze moves in bringing neighbors to their front porches, and just before the edge of night a big yellow Chrysler comes cruising up the lane. Sure enough, it circles and lights right in front of Miss Ivy’s house. A tall, dark figure crawls from the driver’s seat and straightens the cap on his head – the kind of cap they wear on TV to play golf, a bright plaid.
It was a long walk up to the door, but he seemed to stretch it out – stopping now and then to tip his hat at the neighbor ladies on their porch swings. Naturally, Miss Ivy was shut up inside, not about to give the least impression she was sitting around waiting. And just coy as you can imagine, she let that man ring the bell ten times before she decided to answer it. And then one hour later, here comes her suitor out the front door again, making polite salutations and tipping his hat to the same nosey neighbors who’d sat right there waiting on him.
Next morning, he drives up in the fancy yellow car again. He struts up the walkway with a big city grin on his face, and old lady Gaines is quite smitten when he compliments her day lilies. She’d have had that man in– mark my word – if Mr. Gaines hadn’t been around. And not five minutes later, here they come – him and Ivy – swinging a picnic basket. He let the top down on his convertible and they roar off down the road like a couple of teenagers.
In the meantime, Kettie Lee, the nosiest old biddy in town, gets on the phone with her cousin in Chicago who looks up the man in the phone directory. “There ain’t a T. Dodd Sellers in the whole book – white pages or yellow!” her cousin says. So naturally, Kettie feels it’s her Christian duty to tell all the neighbors, and by the time Miss Ivy returns in the evening, everybody on the street is posted at their front stoop. Of course the man has no idea what the nosey bunch is whispering about -- chattering more like. Miss Ivy wouldn’t invite him in so late, though they do linger on the porch for a questionable period.
Next morning, they’re off again, this time swinging a suitcase and hatbox. Miss Ivy’s dressed fit to kill and smiling like a mule eating briars. No doubt about it – the man is taking the poor thing for a ride. Deana Tucker tails them far as the county line, where she’s cut off by a train, and next thing we hear, they’ve hopped a plane to who knows where. Some say Hollywood. Others, Chicago.
Three months goes by, and old lady Steed gets a picture postcard from Paris, France. Not much to look at, just a bunch of tiny scenes and some French writing. And then last Christmas, she gets another card, with the following words: “Magnifique! I was made for here.” And that’s the last we hear from the woman for a long time.
Meanwhile, her house sets empty and the grass grows high, but everybody keeps a close eye on it. Come July, her Mr. Sellers rolls into town one hot afternoon in another fancy rented car – all hush-hush – then disappears quick as he came. “Miss Ivy’s husband,” the banker tells us, “came to transfer the rest of her savings.” Every last dime her daddy left her when he died.
Folks pawed at the courthouse door for days trying to find out about this so-called husband and Miss Ivy’s whereabouts. They were told sternly that they had no right to her personal business – even if she had no family. But Sybil Leach, one of the tellers, let it slip that her daddy had held on to a bunch of stock shares since before the Depression, and this just fueled more suspicion.
Before we know it, Miss Ivy’s house and all its contents– except for the appliances and personal things – go on the sale block. Folks snatch up everything they can get their hands on for pennies on the dollar, and two weeks later, a woman with the eight meanest kids you ever saw move in and proceed to take the damn place apart. It seems Mr. Sellers had changed his mind about selling Miss Ivy’s place after all. It makes the neighbors so mad they get a lawyer to let Ivy Webb know personally what’s happening here. And, sure enough, the lawyer posts a letter to somewhere in Chicago, which is forwarded from there. But it doesn’t reach her for a month, and by that time the filthy bunch has fled in the night, taking all her appliances with them. She wouldn’t have one thing left to set up housekeeping if she finds herself dumped and crawling back home.
Days tick by again, till finally the lawyers let us know Miss Ivy is aware of the situation, just that her husband tells her not to worry her pretty head about business matters. So we’re all surprised to learn that Miss Ivy herself responded to the letter. It seems Mr. Sellers had just recently died, unexpectedly – a tragic fall from a Paris balcony. The lawyers insisted they didn’t know any more, except he was insured. It’s enough to have to deal with such a loss, without having the stress of money matters.
Well this was certainly enough shock to go around and keep tongues wagging for a while. Miss Ivy does all her grieving privately, right there in Paris, France – too ashamed to face us, we assume. And there she stays another long year – right up to last week. It must have been comforting to plan a visit with folks that loved her just the way she was when she left here. Everybody agrees not to say one word about that suspicious husband of hers while she’s here. Ain’t no use in getting her all upset again. But I must say we’re surprised when she shows up toting another one of them Paris paintings – her and some new man posing next to the Eiffel Tower. “A world traveler,” she says to us. “A rich widower from New Orleans.” Everybody just smiles and carries on about her fine new clothes and jewelry and Paris hairdo – and her new suitor beside her in the painting. And somehow, I feel myself being strangely drawn into her silly picture, lost to it. Studying the two of them posing and smiling back at me for the longest while – till my mind finally wakens to a faint voice far off and whispering, That poor soul. That poor soul.
|
|
