Maggie Sweet Read Free Page B

principal’s announcementover the PA during graduation practice: “No earrings, teased-up hair, or loud makeup for graduation. Y’all are supposed to look like fresh young ladies, not New York City si-reens.” We all laughed at the way he had said sirens, but there was no doubt in our minds he’d send us home to change, even on graduation day.
    So I used extra Tangee and hoped for the best. At the last minute I sneaked into Mother’s room and dabbed some Evening in Paris behind my ears. If I couldn’t look like a si-reen, at least I could smell like one.
    Mother and Mama Dean were putting pink rosettes on my red velvet cake when I finally came downstairs in my cap and gown. They’d even decorated the living room with red and gray crepe paper streamers, Poplar Grove’s school colors.
    “You’ll be getting your biggest surprise later,” Mama Dean said, winking at Mother.
    I was too busy thinking about my surprise for Jerry to ask any questions.
     
    When our class marched up the aisle to “Pomp and Circumstance,” I could see Mother and Mama Dean seated near the front of the auditorium, fanning themselves with In-Your-Time-of-Need-Call-Sim’s-Funeral-Home cardboard fans.
    Mama Dean bawled so loud everyone turned and stared at her as I walked across the stage for my diploma. Mother, who looked cool even in ninty-degree heat, sat straight in her chair and looked prouder than I’d ever seen her.
    For a minute I felt guilty as homemade sin for what Iwas planning to do later. But the minute Jerry’s blue eyes met mine across that crowded stage, I knew tonight had to be the night.
    When we got back to the house for the family party, Smilin’ Jack’s new pickup was parked in the driveway. Daddy was married to a nice country woman named Willa Mae now. They both had steady jobs at a hosiery mill and had bought a cute little house on the outskirts of Chapel Hill.
    Daddy was getting downright respectable.
    For my graduation present, he and Willa Mae gave me a complete Blue Waltz perfume set, dusting powder and all. Mother and Mama Dean had gone in together and got me a Bulova watch. Miss Honeycutt and Miss Skurlock, our boarders, gave me a mustard seed necklace (“If you have the faith of a grain of mustard seed…” Matthew 17) and a Cross pen and pencil set.
    Then over cake and punch, Smilin’ Jack told me about my graduation surprise.
    He’d paid my tuition, in full, to the Chapel Hill School of Licensed Practical Nursing. He’d even found me a summer job at a Tastee-Freez near his house. I’d be moving in with him and Willa Mae within the hour.
    I grinned nervously at Mother and Mama Dean, sure that any minute one of them would say that Daddy was just teasing or that this was just another one of his “damn-fool notions.” But the smile quickly died on my lips. Mother and Mama Dean were actually packing my suitcases.
    “Maggie Sweet, we’ve been so worried about yourfuture,” they both said, their voices high with emotion, their eyes bright with tears.
    I was really leaving. My future had been decided.
    Even now, I can hardly believe that I did exactly what I was told. But that’s how it was back then. Except for sneaking around to see Jerry and smoking Kools with Mary Price, I did what I was told. It just never came to me to do any different.
    Besides, I don’t think I really believed it was happening. For years I’d had my whole life planned out. And Lord knows, being a nurse and leaving Poplar Grove were not in my plans at all. Everyone knew that all I wanted in the world was to marry Jerry and go to the College of Cosmetology on Bud Hollings Street behind the Western Auto.
    I even planned to have my own shop in the back of our house some day. I’d call it Styles by Maggie Roberts. Now you’ve got to admit that has a nice ring to it.
    I spent entire study halls writing “Mrs. Jerry Roberts” and “Styles by Maggie Roberts” over and over in the margins of all my spiral notebooks.
    Why, I’d