the doctor’s office. “Congratulations!” Maybelle crowed when they walked in. “Y’all are healthy and compatible.”
At the sound of the word compatible, Ben and Lily both burst out laughing.
The Faulkner County Courthouse was typical of small-town courthouse architecture: brick, columns, clock tower. In a stark, fluorescently lighted office, Lily and Ben waited for their license to be processed along with another soon-to-be wed couple. The man looked to be in his late thirties. His beard and mustache were tinged with gray. His bride-to-be, however, couldn’t have been more than sixteen years old. She was big-eyed and bony except for her belly, which was swollen with pregnancy. The girl nodded at Mimi, who was standing up while holding onto Lily’s knee. “How old?” the girl asked.
“Thirteen months,” Lily said. “She’s working on learning how to walk.”
“She’s pretty,” the girl said, with a wistful smile on her face. “I can’t wait til my baby comes, so I can play with him.”
Lily smiled at the girl, but looking at her made her sad — this little girl who was going to play with her baby like a new doll. Lily couldn’t even look at the grown man who had taken his bride’s girlhood away.
Finally the clerk returned with Ben and Lily’s paperwork. “There ya go,” she said brightly, “and congratulations.”
Lily was exhausted from hauling Mimi around. “So, where do we go to get this thing over with?”
“Over to the City Drug,” Ben said. “The pharmacist there’s the justice of the peace.”
Lily followed him down the stairs. “We’re getting married in a drug store?”
“Yup.”
“Well, it’s handy, I guess. We can get married and buy condoms for our wedding night in the same convenient location.”
Ben stumbled on the stairs, steadied himself on the railing, and looked back at Lily with an expression of animal terror.
“I was joking! God.”
The old lady in the half-glasses at the City Drug eyed Ben. “You’re Big Ben McGilly’s boy, ain’tcha?”
“Yes. Ma’am, and we’re here to get married.”
“A McGilly getting married in the City Drug? I’ve never heard the like! Why, when your little brother got married, they had it over at the country club. I heard tell they floated candles and flowers in that pond out by the golf course —”
“I know,” Ben said impatiently. “I was there. The thing is, we’re in kind of a hurry.”
The woman looked Lily up and down. “I don’t see why. She ain’t showing yet. And that little girl’s just about big enough to be a flower girl.” When neither Lily nor Ben responded, she shrugged and hollered, “Frank! Wedding!”
“Bring ’em on back,” a gruff voice called from the back of the store.
