Brother Willy's Traveling Salvation Show Page 2
Peter threw the next ball inside, almost hitting Michelle. Much to Scott’s surprise, she made no effort to back out of the batters box. Still in a quiet voice, he offered her one last piece of information. Scott pulled his facemask down so he would not be seen talking to her. “The next one will be down the middle, if he can throw one down the middle.”
Her response this time was made with more civility. “Fastball or change up?”
Scott replied, “With Peter, there’s not much difference”.
Scott could hear her giggle as she raised her bat. Once Peter released the ball, Scott raised his glove slightly to make the catch. He heard the crack of her bat as the ball made its way over the head of the first baseman and down the right field line. After a series of fielding errors, Michelle had turned what should have been a single into a triple. Any remaining comments from the dugout quickly turned to silence.
Several batters came up before Jeff got a hit that brought Michelle sliding in at home. As she sat in the dirt with her hand on home plate, she spoke in a soft voice. “Thank you.”
That one day of tryouts was the beginning of a friendship that has lasted ever since. In many ways, it was a strange friendship. They never went out on what most people would call a date, yet they often went places together. In high school, they would often take day trips to the coast, go out for pizza when neither of them had a date, and they spent a great deal of time entangled in each other’s life.
It was rare when Scott would approve of whom she was dating and she rarely had anything nice to say about the girls he dated. Neither Michelle nor Scott was involved in a long-term serious relationship during high school until Scott was a senior. It had not occurred to him until he was off at college why this might have been the case. All but one of the girls he dated apparently had a problem accepting the friendship Michelle and Scott shared. He found out recently she had the same problem.
Michelle and Scott went to different colleges yet managed to talk to each other every few days. They planned their trips home in order to spend time together when they were on break. Still, time and distance had started to change their long-standing friendship in ways that were at first very subtle. They still talked at least four times each week, but the conversations were shorter and at times strained. There were just too many miles between them to stay involved in each other’s daily life. They didn’t know the same people or share a common knowledge of places and events. By their senior year in college, Michelle had met someone and their time together became harder to arrange.
After graduation from college, Michelle and Scott moved back to New Bern until they could find jobs. They had been back for only two days when Michelle called and suggested they spend the day on the beach at Cape Lookout. By 10:30 the next morning, they had taken the ferry from Harkers Island, visited the lighthouse, and were lying on the beach while talking about their long history together. For most of the morning, they were acting as if they had never been apart from each other, although she did at times appear distracted.
After lunch, Scott found out why she was distracted. She was sitting on her beach towel as she pulled her legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her knees before she spoke. “I want to ask you something and I want you to be very honest with me”
Scott agreed and she, with great hesitation, posed her question. “Tom has asked me to marry him and I want to know what you think.”
For reasons he could not explain, Scott felt as though he had been punched in the stomach by a prizefighter. He sat in total silence longer than he should have, as he watched the waves breaking on the shoreline. After far too much thought, Scott offered Michelle the best advice he could conjure up on short notice. “I think that if you are in love with him, if he makes you happy, and you are ready to settle down, then you should go for it.”
Her response was also long in coming and was made with the same reluctance she was feeling. “He wants us to move to New England and if we do, you and I won’t see much of each other any more.”
Scott took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “I guess that somewhere in the back of my mind I always knew this day would come. I just didn’t expect it to come this soon.”
Michelle was also watching the waves as neither of them really wanted to look at the other. Her voice was soft and reflective. “We’ve come so far together and we held each other up through the good times and the bad times. Do you think I am ready for this?”
Scott shook his head slowly, indicating he could not answer her question. “You are the only person on earth that can solve that mystery. I wish I could tell you the right thing to do, but I don’t know. What did you tell him when he proposed to you? What were you feeling?”
Her hesitation in responding spoke volumes about the uncertainty she was feeling. “I told him I would marry him, and at the time, I was very excited.”
“Then maybe that’s the answer to your question.” Scott replied.
Michelle had her doubts as she pointed out something he had not expected. “I was excited until the novelty wore off. When I was driving home from school, I began to have some serious doubts. I don’t know if I am ready to move on to that part of my life yet. I don’t know for sure that he is the right person for me.”
Given the fact that Scott had never approved of anyone Michelle went out with, he saw her new boyfriend as no exception, even though Scott did not know him. Still, he chose to challenge Tom’s worthiness to marry Michelle. “Suppose Tom were a baseball catcher and you were coming to bat. Do you think he would tip you off as to what pitch would be coming across the plate?”
She turned her attention from the ocean and looked directly at him. “He is very competitive, so I don’t know if he would or not.”
Scott also turned and looked at her. “If you aren’t sure, then you need to take some time to think about getting married. He has to be on your side.”
Michelle knew Scott was not talking about baseball, but rather making a statement about his commitment to support her. Scott also knew he needed to be very careful with his words. She had agreed to marry Tom and the least Scott could do was to support her choice, even if he didn’t like her decision. With some degree of forced enthusiasm, Scott raised the important question, “So when is the big day?”
She continued to stare at him, as she called his bluff. “We haven’t set a date yet and stop acting like you are excited for me.”
After all the years they had known each other, telling a lie was useless. “I’m sorry, but you don’t appear all that excited. Why don’t you tell me what’s really bothering you?”
She immediately turned her attention back to the breaking waves before speaking in a soft voice. “You wouldn’t understand.”
Scott continued to watch her expression while being somewhat surprised by her comment. “That’s the first time I have ever heard you say that to me.”
She was clearly frustrated as she turned her attention back to him. “You are not a female and my problem wouldn’t make sense to you.”
She had not only raised his curiosity, but also made him more determined to offer some degree of self-defense. “I am not a deer either, but I am reasonably sure I don’t want to be shot.”
Much to his surprise, the more he tried to help, the more frustrated she became. She stood up and took a few steps toward the ocean before she turned to face him. “Consider yourself lucky that I don’t have a gun and that you are not a deer. She took several more steps toward the ocean before calling back to him. “Are you coming?”
Scott reached into his backpack and took out the Frisbee, carrying it by his side as they walked to the edge of the water. They stood together for a few minutes before she spoke. “Scott, I don’t think I would be doing the right thing by getting married. It just doesn’t feel right when I’m with Tom.”
Scott picked up a seashell and handed it to her before he spoke. “You’ve told me for the last nine months how well things were going between you and Tom. I guess you we
re right. I don’t understand.”
It was becoming clear that Michelle was not going to explain whatever she thought he would not understand. She reached down to his hand, taking the Frisbee before calling out, “Go long”.
They spent the rest of the day at the beach playing with the Frisbee, walking along the almost deserted shoreline, and talking about everything except her marriage. As Tom had gone home to New England to begin his search for a job, Michelle and Scott very quickly reverted to their familiar pattern of going places together. With most of their old friends moving away from New Bern, neither of them had much of a social life left.
CHAPTER IV
Michelle left in mid June to visit Tom and meet his parents. When she returned, she said very little about her engagement or anything related to her wedding plans. For all practical purposes, life was more or less normal for Michelle and Scott. They were both still looking for jobs, spending days at the beach, and they were both coming to realize their carefree way of life could not continue. Part time jobs were not going to sustain either of them going forward and they knew time was running out.
Scott had known for some time that Michelle was Betsy and William Broughton’s niece and that Michelle was very close to her Aunt Betsy. What he had not expected was the invitation to attend a cookout at the Broughton farm on the night of July 4th. Scott knew William and Betsy well enough to speak and carry on a conversation, but he didn’t really see himself fitting into their social circles. He therefore assumed his being invited to the cookout was in deference to Michelle. Scott was wrong in his assumption and his experience on the Fourth of July would be a life-changing event.
He was reluctant to go, but Michelle insisted she did not want to go alone and therefore, Scott had to go with her. Her argument was based on a friendship rule they made with each other while still in high school. As it turned out, his reluctance was not well founded as Betsy and William had the ability to make Scott feel as if he were part of the family.
They arrived at the farm shortly after five thirty in the afternoon. The first thing he noticed was the beautiful two-story antebellum home. Scott assumed the house was a typical plantation home and was large enough to be impressive in its own right. Large white columns extended from the porch to the second story roofline supporting a second story walk out balcony. A very large brick chimney penetrated the roof near the center of the house. Original white clapboard siding provided a perfect contrast for the black shutters beside the windows. The front entrance was both wider and taller than normal, flanked by sidelights with a large elliptical window above the door.
Not far from the house, Scott could see barns and grain silos surrounded by what he assumed were hundreds of acres of soybeans. The yard was thick and deep green in color with the bushes and hedges trimmed to perfection. Betsy’s flowers were in full bloom adding a large variety of colors to the picturesque landscape.
They walked beside the house to the back yard where the others were already gathered. As Michelle and Scott turned the corner, they saw her parents, George and Sally, talking to Betsy. What he did not expect to see were Scott’s parents, Mark and Sandy, sitting next to William Broughton. It was obvious from listening to the conversations that they all knew each other quite well, yet he had never heard his parents ever mention William or Betsy.
Shortly after they arrived, Joe, Anna, Hank and his new girlfriend Nancy came along to join the party. As they made the rounds greeting each person, Scott could not help but notice the extra attention his parents gave Michelle as his mother hugged her and his dad gave her a kiss on the cheek. Neither Michelle’s nor Scott’s siblings were at the party making them the only ones present under the age of forty-five.
Throughout dinner, there was no shortage of interesting conversation, jokes, and stories of days and events gone by. There was a nice variety of food and all of it had been prepared to perfection. Scott was very interested in listening to Betsy, as she was a very graceful and intelligent woman who could command attention with her soft-spoken ways. Scott was equally impressed with the more boisterous William who appeared to possess a very broad range of knowledge and experience.
After they finished cleaning up the dishes from dinner, Hank, Joe and Betsy took out their guitars and violin and began to play. They played an interesting variety of music including bluegrass, classical, old rock and some typical sing along songs. Two ideas crossed Scott’s mind as he watched them perform. They were each talented musicians and they obviously played music together quite often. Frequently, they would make the transition from one song to another without stopping or even looking at each other for direction. In some respects, it was as if he and Michelle were watching a prepared concert.
What had been a nice Fourth of July cookout was starting to become somewhat strange. William held up two fingers, apparently sending some type of signal, which everyone except Michelle and Scott understood. Without hesitation, they all stood up and began to sing the first two verses of “We Shall Overcome”. At then end of the song and without a word being spoken, they all started walking away toward the barn.
Michelle and Scott were sitting at the picnic table with Scott’s dad and Michelle’s mom, who remained seated with them. Michelle and Scott continued to watch the others walking away in a group and Michelle apparently shared his curiosity. “Where is everyone going, mom?”
Sally glanced at Scott’s dad for a moment before she spoke, “Your Uncle William has a proposition for both you and Scott.
Scott took his turn to question Michelle’s mother as he watched Michelle’s expression. “Is this like a job offer?”
Sally knew where Scott was going with his question and took the opportunity to bring his Dad into the conversation. “Mark, I think I would describe it as a chance to broaden their horizons. What do you think?”
Mark nodded his head. “I agree with Sally and I would add that it is a job and also a chance to gain some insight into your life.”
Michelle started laughing as she turned to Scott. “It sounds like a commercial for the US Army. Can you be more specific?”
Neither Scott’s dad nor Sally so much as smiled, indicating they were both very serious. Sally was rather direct in her reply. “I would suggest you take this as a serious matter because it is a one time offer.”
Scott came quickly to Michelle’s defense and was equally serious with his response. “It would be hard for either of us to consider the offer when we don’t know what the offer is.”
Michelle also pointed out something that Scott thought should be obvious to all. “Mom, you do remember I am getting married, don’t you?”
Scott’s dad chose to reply to Michelle’s question. “Little girls, big girls, engaged girls and married women should always be aware of their options. Many women go through life never understanding their choices. Being married does not deprive you of your right to choose your course in life.”
Sally chose to approach Michelle’s concerns from a different perspective. “You do not have to make any decision tonight. All you have to do is agree to a few simple rules and then you are free to take this opportunity or leave it.”
Michelle was the type of person who rarely drifted far from her comfort zone without knowing what she could expect and tonight was no exception. “What are the rules?”
Sally began to speak after glancing at Mark. “Michelle knows, and I suspect Scott is quickly learning, that her Uncle William has a flare for the dramatic. Before he will make you an offer, he wants to know that each of you have the ability to act.”
Scott’s expression should have easily revealed his sense of astonishment. “Do you mean acting as in being in a movie or on stage?”
Mark nodded his head and replied, “That’s all there is to it. You will be given a script to read and then you will be asked to improvise for a few minutes.”
Michelle spoke without hesitation, “We don’t know anything about acting”.
Mark took issue with Michelle’s proclamati
on. “Actually, we think both of you have a natural talent that William would like to evaluate.”
Sally spoke immediately after Mark finished his statement. “Here are the other rules. Once you agree to begin William’s evaluation, you have to stay with it until the end. In addition, you may not question or object to the directions you are given.”
Mark and Sally stood up from the table at the same time he was giving Michelle and Scott their final comments. “You have ten minutes to make your decision. If you would like to take advantage of this opportunity, come to the barn. We are your parents and you have our word that we believe this is something in your best interest.”
Sally was about to turn away, but remembered one final condition. “Betsy will be the director. You are to take instructions from her and only her. You have no obligation to listen to anyone else.”
When their parents were too far away to hear their conversation, Michelle turned quickly to Scott. “Did you put them up to this?”
Scott was assertive with his defense. “You invited me to this party, so it wasn’t my idea. Besides, they’re your family so how should I know what they are doing?”
“Well your mom and dad were here too, so it’s not just my family. In any case, what do you think they are up to?”
Scott answered her question only after a few moments of deliberation. “I don’t know, but my dad was serious. I can tell when he’s joking and he was not playing a game tonight.”
Michelle wrinkled her nose suggesting her confusion was growing. “Mom wasn’t joking either. Do you want to take a chance and see what it’s all about?”
Before Scott committed to the plan, he wanted to make Michelle aware of his observations. “Did you notice near the end when William held up two fingers, everyone knew what to do without any discussion? It was like they were all behaving in accordance with some prearranged plan.”
“That was so strange. It felt like you and I were the only ones that didn’t know what was going on. I wish you could have seen the look on your face when everyone started to sing at the same time.” She replied.