The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate

IMPERATIVE

Selection may be applied to the family, as well as to the individual, and may thus gain the desired end.

SURE ENOUGH, HARRY was soon asked to have dinner with Fern Spitty, although the invitation was not so blatant. He was invited to the Gateses’ house, but Cousin Fern just happened to be visiting for a fortnight. It was a few short months after the Minerva Goodacre debacle, but Harry looked as if his broken heart had mended. Fern had just come out in Lockhart, and it was time to buckle down to the business of meeting bachelors. Lockhart was nowhere near the size of Austin, of course, but that year for the first time there were five prosperous-enough merchants who felt compelled (by their wives, no doubt) to certify their daughters as marriageable. In other words, up for bid on the block. Mother read about this in the Lockhart Post, and a gleam came into her eye, a gleam I didn’t like, a gleam that I knew had something to do with her only daughter.

Harry resumed anointing and pomading himself. He polished his riding boots so that you could see yourself reflected in them, brushed his suit, and went off to dinner. I figured he was irresistible, he looked that dashing.

The next day Lula reported to me that, after dinner, Harry and Fern sat outside in the darkness on the porch swing for a good half hour with no chaperones except the mosquitoes.

“Did they spoon?” I asked. I wasn’t one hundred percent sure what that involved, but I hoped Lula would know.

“What?” she said. “What?”

“Did he whisper sweet nothings in her ear?”

“Huh?” Lula said. “What’s a sweet nothing? How can you whisper nothing?”

“Never mind. Did he hold her hand?” I said.

“I couldn’t see.”

I went way out on a limb. “Did he kiss her?”

“What?” Lula cried, “Oh, Callie, they barely know each other!”

“Well, I understand that, Lula, but people do kiss, you know. I wondered if you saw it, that’s all.”

She blushed, and the pinpoint dots of sweat across the bridge of her nose beaded up. (Question for the Notebook: Why does Lula’s nose sweat like that? Nobody else’s does.) She yanked her hankie out of her pocket and dabbed at herself over and over and said, “How can you ask me about things like that?”

“Because he’s my brother, and I’m trying to figure out if he’s going to run off and marry Fern. She’s your cousin, so that would make us related, wouldn’t it? I think it would, but I’m not sure how.”

I knew better than to interfere with Harry’s courting. I had learned my lesson hard. But, maybe, if someone else gathered intelligence and it happened to fall in my lap . . .

“Lula,” I said, “do you ever think about getting married?”

“I guess I do. Doesn’t everybody?”

“You have to let your husband kiss you once you’re married. And you have to kiss him back.”

“No,” she said.

“Yes.” I nodded, as if I knew everything there was to know about husbands and wives kissing. “That’s what they do together.”

“Do you have to?”

“Oh, absolutely. It’s the law.”

“I never heard of that law,” she said dubiously.

“It’s true, it’s Texas law,” I said. “And while we’re on the subject, you do know that a whole bunch of my brothers are sweet on you, don’t you?”

Even as this interesting information fell from my mouth, I remembered the promise I had made to all three. “Drat! I wasn’t supposed to tell you that.”

Lula looked shocked by my profanity. “Callie! You shouldn’t swear.”

“Sorry,” I said. “It’s supposed to be a secret. Forget I said anything.”

She hesitated and then said, “So who is it?”

“Who is what?”

“You know . . . sweet on me.”

“Take a guess,” I said. “I shouldn’t tell you.” But I was sick of the burden of carrying their secrets. And why shouldn’t Lula know? “Oh, all right, it’s Lamar and Sam Houston and Travis.”

“My goodness,” she said, turning bright pink.

“You can have your pick. Which one do you like best?”

“I—I don’t know.”

“Well, d’you want any of ’em? I’m not sure I would, if I were you. Which one is the handsomest, do you think? Harry is, of course, but he’s not in the running.”

She flushed and said, “They’re all nice-looking boys.”

“Yeah, Lula, but do you like any of them?”

“They’re all nice boys.”

“Yeah, yeah, but do you like any of them?” But she wouldn’t answer me, just dabbed at her beads of sweat and looked flustered.

I went on, “If I were you, I’d pick Travis. He’s the nicest one. Maybe kissing him wouldn’t be so bad. There must be something to it—otherwise, they wouldn’t want to do it, don’t you think?”

Lula looked thoughtful. “I don’t know if my mother and father enjoy it. I mean, I can’t remember seeing them kiss.”