Free The Music of Your Life by John Rowell Page B

haven’t found something here at the Bridal Barn. But now I’m moving into Aggressive Shopping Mode: we have got to find Mother the right wedding frock! She is going to look good if I have to turn an entire mall upside down to make it happen.
    While I wait for Mother to change out of the gray dress, the mailman comes in to deliver the mail to Evelyn. He trades pleasantries with her, leaning on the counter, chitchatting. Then he looks over at me: the lone man in this women’s dress shop. He stares at me for several seconds. I figure he’s probably not used to seeing any males in here on any day. He nods, and I nod back, John Wayne—style. He’s probably thinking, What the hell is that boy doing in the Bridal Barn . Oh, for God’s sake, why am I worried? It’s Fuquay Varina. Fuquay Fucking Varina. What do I care what Joe the Mailman thinks of me? He’s not even cute.
    â€œI’m sorry we didn’t find you anything,” says Mavis, ushering us to the door.
    â€œWell, so am I,” says Mother, with a good-natured laugh. “I hope I don’t have to wear a potato sack to my child’s wedding.”
    â€œWhere are you all from?” asks Evelyn, back on the swivel stool.
    â€œWe’re from over in Mullens. Well, I am. This is my older son, Hampton, and he lives in New York.”
    â€œWell, aren’t you nice to come all the way down here to help your mama pick out a dress?” she says, in a tone completely free of sarcasm.
    â€œThank you,” I say, weakly.
    â€œIs the reception in Mullens, too?” Mavis asks.
    â€œYes,” says Mother. “At the CPCC.”
    â€œOooh,” says Mavis, adding her signature cluck at the end.
    â€œY’all come back to see us now,” says Evelyn, as the jingle bell announces our departure.

    I convince Mother to drive straight on to Raleigh, and to ignore Sybil Scruggs’s advice to seek out something called Betty’s Wedding Emporium in nearby Garner. Garner is simply not on the way to Crabtree Valley Mall.
    â€œMother,” I say, as I eject her Ferrante and Teicher Play Songs of Love tape out of the tape deck and try to locate my favorite old high school Top 40 radio station on the dial, “there are so many stores at Crabtree. Belk’s, Montaldo’s. Dominique’s of Raleigh. We’ll find something.”
    She picks up the cell phone.
    â€œDial Daddy at the office for me, Hampton,” she says. “I just want to check in.”
    Since my father’s heart attack three years ago, my mother checks in on him a lot more than she might have otherwise. She is rarely far away from him; today is an exception.
    â€œBrown Landscaping,” says my father’s voice on the other end.
    â€œHey, Daddy, it’s Hampton.”
    â€œHey, son. Having any luck?”
    â€œNot yet.”
    He laughs. “Well. Better you than me, that’s all I’ve got to say. I would be of no use whatsoever.”
    I hand the phone to Mother, and lean back in my seat. Looking out the window behind my Ray-Bans, I watch the signs to Greater Raleigh come into view. It is a shining, technicolor fall day; blue-bright and fresh-aired, and as we go farther north the trees become gradually deeper with color: reds, golds, and oranges. I can’t help but think that had I not been replaced as the resident Prince Charming with New York’s famed Ragamuffin Theater Company I would probably also be traveling today, somewhere in Pennsylvania, maybe, or Connecticut, on the way to some elementary school to put on tights and apply Leading Man #2 pancake while standing in front of a dimly fluorescentlit mirror in—God help me—a teachers’ lounge men’s room.
    Which makes me think of Robbie … Robbie was a part-time member of the company who played the Scarecrow to my Tin Man in Ragamuffin’s production of The Wizard of Oz . I happen to know that he has now taken over my