Spruced up for the occasion, we drove to town and arrived early enough at the Legion to hold the corner booth, which the Goodnoughs favored. We sat down in the darkened room, which was already layered with smoke, beside the bandstand, where sure as hell—the ads hadn’t lied—Shorty and his boys were making warm-up noises. They each had Stetsons stuck down over their bushy heads, Shorty in a red hat, the boys in black, and the whole band had the kind of doodad beads hanging from knots on the leather strings of their vests that little kids will play with. They were drunk or doped to the gills. While they hit their warm-up licks they kept saying stuff to one another and then laughing, like whatever it was the other guy had said flat proved he was witty. It was better not to watch them, to just listen to them play once they got started, because in fact they could play music. It only made you sick if you watched them.
After we had been there for a few minutes Marvella Packwood came over to take our order. When she wasn’t canning pickles or populating the town with another baby, Marvella waited bar at the Holt Legion. I suppose that was where she discovered the fathers for her kids, only she seemed lately to have slacked a little in her efforts, because there hadn’t been a new kid sired in a couple of years. I wasn’t up-to-date on her pickles. Anyway, she stood in front of us now in a purple low-necked shirt and pink jeans so tight the stitches showed; she was carrying a cocktail tray while she popped gum. “What am I going to get you folks?” she said.
“Marvella,” I said. “You’re looking good.”
“You think so? I just bought this blouse this morning. Like it?”
“Why sure. Don’t you, Lyman?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
Marvella leaned over the table, showing a good deal of what she had under the blouse to Lyman as she patted his cheek. “What’s the matter, darlin’?” she said. “Don’t you feel any good tonight?”
“I feel all right,” Lyman said.
“He needs a drink.”
“That’s what I’m here for. I try to do all I can with what I have.” She tossed her head back, the muscles of her neck bulging as she laughed.
We gave her our orders. When she was gone back to the bar to bring the drinks, Mavis poked me sharp in the ribs. “What’s that for?” I said.
“Don’t ask,” she said.
“You mean her? Why hell, I was just trying to buy some insurance.”
“You don’t need any insurance. I paid it last month.”
“I’m talking about Marvella.”
“So am I.”
“No, I mean if you pay her a little attention she’ll bring us our drinks without having to call her.”
“You’re paying too much attention.”
Marvella came back with our drinks on her tray and bent over to set the glasses on napkins on the table.
“Miss Packwood, you do look fine tonight,” I said.
She popped her gum, I paid her, and she left. Mavis poked me in the ribs again. I was beginning to believe that I would have to change sides with my wife so she could damage both sides equally, but it didn’t come to that, because pretty soon Shorty started playing, and after a few fast numbers to establish the band and to warm up the crowd he began a slow danceable version of “Release Me.”
“Come on,” I said to Lyman. “Show us country hicks how you learned to do the box step in Rochester.”
With enough prodding from Edith and Mavis, Lyman finally agreed to stand up and dance. The floor was crowded with farm couples and town folks, the women in bright dresses and matching heels and the men beginning to sweat a little under the arms as they pumped their ladies’ hands in big swings across the floor. Everybody was enjoying himself. Across the room I could see Vince Higgims, Jr., trying to sweet-talk the latest target of his affections, a big solid black-haired girl who didn’t appear overly impressed, and at the bar the middle-aged Wellright boys were in earnest conversation with the mayor. The mayor was squeezed onto a stool between them. He was nodding his head, and Buster was saying, “Am I right?”
And Barry was saying, “You damn right he’s right.”