Free Luna by Sharon Butala Page A

paper tablecloths and set with cutlery, salt and pepper shakers and cream and sugar sets. Rena wasmoving among the tables, setting small vases, each holding a pink and a blue artificial daisy and a sprig of artificial fern, two to a table. She was moving quickly, straightening the chairs and benches arranged on each side of the tables, while her daughter Tracey followed, carefully carrying the tray of vases, her expression serious, both of them intent on their work.
    At the far end of the hall, by the main entrance, Selena saw Phoebe and Melissa sitting at the reception table. As she watched, Phoebe stood up, accepted a shining, silver-wrapped parcel from the couple who were bending to sign the guest book, and carried it to the table behind them, which was beginning to be piled with gifts. Selena smiled without meaning to, because Phoebe looked so pretty in her white cotton dress with the pink belt, her shoulder-length, light brown hair carefully brushed and shining. Then she scoffed at herself—an ordinary teenager, like all the rest of them here, she thought. Yes, but my own little girl. She threw the tea towel she was holding over her shoulder, then hastily took it off again: don’t put your tea towel over your shoulder, your hair will touch it, it’s a messy habit, her mother’s voice still echoing in her ears after all these years. Sometimes she thought she would never shake her mother’s teachings. It both angered her and pleased her to think that she was what her mother had made her.
    Phoebe was seated again, laughing with Melissa about something, and more people were coming in, smiling and calling to each other. And Phoebe? she wondered, watching her, what have I made her? Phoebe was standing again, moving quickly, several parcels piled up in her arms. She tried to think of what she had taught her: don’t let the boys touch you, was the first admonition that sprang into her mind, seeing her now, so womanly and pretty. But no, earlier than that. She frowned, trying to remember. Wash your hands often, it’s important to be clean. Be neat, comb your hair whenever you think of it during the day. Don’t make a lot of noise, nobody likes a roughneck girl. Be polite … more admonitions came crowding into her mind.
    No, she thought, as Phoebe returned to her chair. Surely those weren’t the things that would make a woman of Phoebe. It wasn’t that they weren’t important, it was just that something seemed to be missing. What was it that was missing? It seemed to her that there was some core to whatit meant to be a woman that she had never had the words to talk about. Was it God? Phoebe had asked her about God more than once over the years. Yes, there is a God, Selena had told her; ask the minister, ask your Sunday School teacher. Maybe she should have tried harder to answer Phoebe herself. But what answers do I have? she wondered.
    “Excuse me,” Joanne sang in her ear. She had to turn sideways to squeeze through the door past Selena. She was carrying a dish of pickles in each hand and her cheeks were flushed with the heat in the kitchen, her eyes too bright. The ties of her apron barely met at the back.
    “Let me take those,” Selena said, reaching for the thick glass dishes without waiting for Joanne to answer her. She took one in each hand, and nodded toward the only chair in the kitchen, pushed back into a corner in front of the cupboards. “You better go sit down.”
    “I’m fine,” Joanne protested, not smiling.
    “Do what she tells you,” Ruth called from behind them. “You’ll work hard enough once the baby comes.” Ruth was a cousin of Joanne’s so she could boss her around. Joanne went slowly to the chair and sat down, then began to fan herself with a paper napkin.
    “If it weren’t so hot, it wouldn’t be so bad,” Enid remarked to Selena. “I’ll take those.” Before Selena could move, she had taken the two dishes of pickles from her and had hurried out into the hall with them.