'I swear,' he said, 'Reese should've been the girl and her the boy.'
Like me, Annie Sue was an accident of nature after Herman and Nadine thought they'd finished their family. They’d begun with twins, Reese and Denise. No surprise since twins ran in both families. Herman was one of two sets our daddy sired—he and Haywood, the 'big twins,' are seven and eight brothers up from me—and Nadine's grandmother was a twin, too. Edward came along two years later and that seemed to be all she wrote till he was in the second grade and Nadine got pregnant with Annie Sue.
'I thought I was having the change early,' Nadine always said.
By that time, Herman had his electrician's license and his own business. Nadine had started doing the paperwork and answering the phone, so she just set up a playpen beside her desk and let Annie Sue teethe on new rubber insulators. The child was barely toddling before Herman stuck her in his truck and started taking her along to be his gofer on local jobs. Soon she was handing him a pair of wire strippers or a line tester before he even asked for it. 'Best little helper I ever had,' he said. 'Even if she is a girl.'
At the age of twelve Annie Sue rewired her bedroom with outlets every three feet and installed stereo speakers under her bed. Once when she was mad at her parents, she fixed it so that every time Nadine adjusted a stove burner, the front doorbell would ring. Nadine's not the brightest woman God ever made, so it took her two days to realize there was a connection between turning off the peas and running to answer the door when no one was there. Herman thought it was sort of funny till he went to plug in his razor and the bathroom lights went off and on in rhythmical sequence.
He switched her legs good for it, but I heard him bragging about how much aptitude those monkey tricks took and how he wished Reese or Edward showed half as much.
Reese could pull wire, but he's not really interested in the finer points. Being an electrician is just a paycheck, something that puts beer and barbecue in his belly, new radials on his Corvette, and his half the rent in his trashy girlfriend's hand—none of which meet Herman's approval.
Edward, on the other hand, had no intention of wallowing around under houses, rewiring old fuse boxes. He studied electrical engineering at State and now works with a big outfit headquartered in Charlotte where he designs lighting systems on a grand industrial scale.
Denise worked in the business every summer, too, but she never got out of the office. She still acts like she's not real sure which end of an extension cord plugs into a wall. Not that she'll ever need to know, long as there's a man around to do it for her. And not that Herman ever expected her to. She's a girl, isn't she? True to form—and confirming his second worst fear—right out of high school she married an insurance salesman a bare eight months before the baby came. (Poor Herman's worst fear is that a daughter of his would have a child and no wedding. In Dobbs, 'nice' girls still don't.)
Denise now lives in Greensboro, a hundred miles away from her parents' judgmental eyes; but her near brush with scandal has made Herman twice as strict with his younger daughter and she's never been allowed off on anything less than a double date.
Annie Sue gripes loudly to anybody who'll listen that Herman doesn't trust her. She's right. He doesn't. We can tell him he's wrong till our tongues get blisters, he just can't believe she won't make dumb decisions about her life. * * *
Annie Sue returned with a tray that held four glasses of ice and a big plastic pitcher of tea. Nadine followed.
'Hey there, Deborah. I didn't know you were out here till Annie Sue told me.' She handed Herman the antacid tablets and smiled at the big cat in my lap. 'Goldie ever come back?'
I returned her smile. Nadine's all right. We're not terribly close. She's seventeen years older, practically a whole generation ahead of me. Too, she's one of those Blalocks from Black Creek and more straitlaced than most of the Knotts, but that seems to suit Herman. They don't go in for public shows of affection, but their marriage has never caused much gossip in the family. Although Herman's tighter with a dollar than most of the boys, nobody ever hears Nadine complain that she doesn't have everything she needs or wants.
'No,' I answered, stroking Mo-Cat (because he purrs like an electric motor all the time). Goldie, short for Goldenrod, was Aunt Zell's big yellow cat that disappeared back in May. 'Aunt Zell thinks she must've been hit by a car or something. Miss Sallie's talked her into taking a puppy. Her mama dog strayed off last week, and Miss Sallie was stuck trying to hand-feed four beagle pups around the clock.'
We watched Herman take two tablets and wash them down with a big swig of tea.
'Stomach still bothering you, hon?'
'You're not feeling well?' I asked him.
'I'm fine. Just a little stomach virus I can't seem to shake. It comes and goes.'
My eyes met Nadine's. 'It comes more than it goes,' she said. 'Awful cramps. He had a real bad spell Monday night after your swearing-in, but will he see a doctor? I think it's a bleeding ulcer, but he won't let me look at his stool and—'
'Oh, hey now, woman!' Herman had an old-fashioned delicacy about some things and he fumed in embarrassment. 'Deb'rah sure didn't come over here to listen to us talk about something like that.'
Unspoken was the sudden question of why I
'Actually, I guess I'm here for the same thing you and Annie Sue were fussing about before,' I told Herman. 'I was hoping you'd let me borrow some of your tools Saturday morning. Uncle Ash is so picky and I'm supposed to work on that WomenAid house, too. What about you, Nadine?'
'Oh, I'm not doing any building, but I did say I'd help some of the other ladies with the picnic lunch.'
'What sort of tools?' asked Herman cautiously.
'Just a hammer,' I assured him. 'Maybe a nail apron if you've got an extra.'
'I reckon I could do that right now Annie Sue, you want to look in that side bin for your aunt?'
'Or I could just drive the truck over Saturday and Deborah could help me string wire.'
