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by Jane Thurmond
When I approached the panel of judges, they shifted in their seats. A single bulb lit the domes of their Sunday hats and the knuckles of their white gloved hands. But I was not bothered by their stern faces, etched with doubt. Scriptures whooshed through me and out my mouth and I felt clean inside, lightheaded. Each verse they challenged me to recite drifted through the cracks in the clapboard church, drawing my fellow contestants to the windows to ogle. Hours later, after my final flawless recitation, the humbled judges stretched forward to caress my clasped hands and I bloomed to welcome my rewards. A flurry of possibilities peppered my future. First, a formal dress, matching pumps, perfume, nylons, escort and crown bearer -- all choices to consider before my grand coronation as Queen Judy Ann of the House of Wiggins of the Royal Family of Breeze Baptist Church.
illustration by Penny Van HornNewspapers in five states picked up my story. "Ambitious Student Memorizes Large Chunk of Bible." "Elephant Memory!" "Motherless Teen Repairs Family Name." In my favorite spread the arched doors of the sanctuary curled around my shoulders, and the blurb below the photo read, "In this age of hippies and free love, take note of Judy Ann Wiggins. Able to spout scriptures on command, she memorized more Bible verses than all her classmates combined and is known across Texas as the Queen of Queens."
And now I've become a different sort of spectacle. Today, for instance, I was standing in the garden near the front gate when a family in a station wagon coasted slowly down the road. Two girls peered at my belly from the back seat. Through their car window I saw their mother's pursed lips using me as an example.
I turned my back just as our housemother Mrs. Rayburn stepped off the porch. "Judy Ann, look how you've made these blossoms thicken. You're the first to take such an interest in the yard."
"It's that sign," I said, waving my hedge clippers. "No one wants to be seen out here with it."
Behind Mrs. Rayburn, land rose and fell in lifelike mounds -- thigh, torso, a hint of breasts on young flat-chested girls. Looking down on us from where it straddled an earthen hip, "Trinity Bay Home for Unwed Mothers" was etched on an enormous marble marker.
"A boulder that size is impossible to budge," Mrs. Rayburn said, helping me gather my tools.
Still, my trip out to the garden was worth exposure -- for the roses. I cut a dozen buds, one from each bush. Now everyone's room is cheered by a green coke bottle that bears a silky flower.
The father of my baby is not in question. I've never even kissed another boy. I could have fainted when Charlie Pruitt passed his first note through the tenor section and up to me in alto. His Beatle bangs fell wildly across his forehead so I could barely see his eyes. The V of his church choir robe cradled his dimpled chin. I fixed my gaze on the organ, where Mrs. Finch's hands rested on those snowy keys.
Before Mrs. Finch my mother played that organ transforming clarinets into harps and cellos into bassoons. Her feet moved like she was splashing the surface of a lake. Sometimes I'd sit with her on the walnut bench, dangling my feet and watching her long fingers, like birds opening and closing their wings across the keyboards. On the Sunday that she and the choir director ran off together, she wore her most dramatic dress -- white with black blotches splayed across it, as if the organ's keyboards had exploded across her lap.
From that day, the congregation treated me differently. "That's Sharon Wiggins' daughter," they'd tisk-tisk with disapproval, as if I were a remnant of my mother's unfaithfulness. And so, I forced myself to rise above them, realizing I could use my memory to prove myself to everyone.
Last summer after Charlie bought his Impala, we'd drive way out into the Thicket, out to our secret spot along a bayou. Among the sounds of scurrying animals and flapping, squawking birds, he'd challenge me to recite from my endless list of scriptures and I'd do it, fueled by the wet-wood smell, the clack of cane, and alligators skimming the far bank. After mastering all the scriptures it took other girls years to learn, I had a greedy appetite to make my challengers gape and my doubting judges swoon, and so I memorized more.
illustration by Penny Van Horn
A few days before the Coronation, I joined the other queens-to-be to stitch our crown-bearers' pillows. As I stuffed old nylons streaked with runs into a satin sack, they threaded my needles, offered me thimbles and clipped the ragged edges from my trimming lace. Charlie joined the church husbands to collect oleander branches. Their poison leaves can kill, but they ignored that fact, weaving them into wreaths with green salt grass and mounting them on every pew. Candles sat in neat rows and a red carpet rolled down the center aisle. With the lights dimmed, it looked like a queen's cathedral, candlelight flickering across the ceiling, the organ majestic at the front.The night of the Coronation, Daddy stood at my bedroom door, drooping eyes shifting back and forth between me, dressed in my mother's wedding dress, and an old wedding photo of Mother with cake on her face. "You look like her," he said, sadly, with his fists on his hips. Charlie, dressed in a stiff ribbed shirt and royal blue tuxedo, met me at the church with salmon bog orchids he had woven into a corsage. "Dressed like the day you'll become Mrs. Pruitt." His face looked pink from light shining off the neon cross, and when he took my hand and kissed it, I curtsied back. Dolly, his kindergartner cousin I had chosen for my crown bearer, picked at the satin stripe that ran down the side of his pants. He stooped and positioned the satin pillow on her outstretched arms and balanced my crown on top. "Judy Ann started out as a crown-bearer just like you," he said, fiddling with her curls.
Reverend Tilly's wife hurriedly draped all the queens in wide white ribbons, beauty pageant style. As she pinned the ends together at my hip, organ music boomed, announcing the start of the Grand Promenade. Ladies-in-waiting left the foyer, two by two, then princesses marched down the aisle. We queens were giddy, waiting in line for our turn, each of us with an escort on our arm and a squirming crown-bearer to watch after. Through the porthole window in the sanctuary door, I could see that my fans filled the pews to overflowing. The only queen with a scepter, I hovered above the other girls as we waited. Charlie's English Leather enveloped me in a fragrant sweet veil.
The other queens dwindled down the aisle until Charlie, Dolly and I were left alone in the foyer. In the distance, flanking Reverend Tilly, the slouching guards straightened when his booming voice announced, "Judy Ann of the House of Wiggins." Charlie gave Dolly a nudge as Haydn rose into the rafters. And as if this were our wedding, we marched towards Reverend Tilly. The congregation stood and faced us as we passed, guards raised their painted wooden swords above their shields in salute. Such a long walk down the wide red carpet. Everything seemed to sway until Dolly halted before Reverend Tilly who plucked the crown from her pillow and cradled it in his palms. After placing the pillow at the edge of my dress she skipped to the cluster of other crown-bearers. As I aimed my knees, Charlie steadied me, until I kneeled on the pillow with my head bowed. "I crown you Queen of Queens, Queen Judy Ann of the House of Wiggins of the Royal Family of Breeze Baptist Church," the reverend recited. He mashed the crown down around my hairdo, which had been, until that moment, a perfect French roll, then awarded me the most exquisite Bible -- white with gold lettering across the front. My scepter glittered as Reverend Tilly finished up, "... be proud and thankful for this servant who is spilling over with the word of God. Watch wherefore she travels, observe her good deeds. Praise God for our Queen of Queens, who has put our church on the map." I swung my scepter in an arc over my head and for the first time ever, they say, in a Coronation at Breeze Baptist Church, the congregation cheered.
A reception followed in Fellowship Hall. Tables groaned under the weight of shimmering green jello, bright fresh fruit cocktails, celery sticks heaped with pimento cheese, saltines, chocolate sheet cakes, and crimson tropical punch. I stood in the receiving line where some younger girls even asked for my autograph. As the last of my well-wishers drifted to the onion dip, Daddy, still wearing his wrinkled work suit, hugged me good-bye and headed for home. As he disappeared out the door I ached for my mother, noticing how the other mothers doted on their daughters by straightening their straps and baby-sitting their bouquets.
Charlie and I wandered around the back lot behind the Sunday school classrooms where he had parked his Impala. Nestled in the back seat I pressed my cheek against his chest and we started kissing like we sometimes did. His arms felt solid around me and the difference was this time, I didn't stop him. Soon he had his jacket off and his zipper down. I recited Song of Solomon to myself to get through. We made this baby without unhooking the eyelets of my dress. I bunched the skirt up around my head so I couldn't see and closed my eyes so tightly I couldn't feel. After he was quiet I couldn't speak. So this is why Mother left, I thought, trying to imagine her enjoying it.
After Charlie saw me to the door, I stepped out of Mother's wedding dress and folded it into my empty dresser drawer. It ballooned up as if it still held my chest, and I waited and watched as it sadly deflated.
At Trinity Bay Home for Unwed Mothers, I chose my room because of "Lady Banks" rose, the only rose bush in the yard that's a climber. She creeps up with tendrils that reach for me, and we spend our days together, me on my side of the screen, her on hers. I keep the window raised and the whole room smells like roses. Not like peppery-smelling florist roses Daddy wired me, accompanied by a card, on my birthday, but more like the roses from Charlie's and my secret spot. Daddy's card is the only message I've received since I arrived.My queen's scepter sits on the windowsill and I see now what it's really made of -- a Styrofoam ball shoved on the end of a brass curtain rod spraypainted gold with rickrack pinned on. A sash of satin ribbon sewed with rows of sequins wraps around the stem. The memory of my Coronation rests in its Styrofoam pores. My crown is a cardboard ring cut in a zigzag around the top, painted white with gold braid glued on, glommed with glitter, especially at the points. You have to smell my Bible to convince yourself the leather is imitation, its cover engraved in gold: Her Majesty, Queen Judy Ann of the House of Wiggins, Queen of Queens of the Royal Family of Breeze Baptist Church.
I close my eyes and feel again like a genuine queen. I place my mother there at the front of the sanctuary near the line of guards who raise their swords in salute, the fiery candles, riotous bouquets, and me, floating there in her dress, wearing my crown, waving this scepter above the heads of everyone.
