Gilbert's New Girl

Chapter One

Chapter One

Before Tally Chambers came to town, everyone around these parts held my brother in the highest esteem. He was one of the good guys, and if the truth be told, he still is---it’s just that Tally Chambers cast a spell over him and a shadow over the entire town. Here’s how it happened.

The Reverend Massey took a stroke late one Saturday night while he was preparing his sermon for Sunday service. Mrs Fenner found him dead when she arrived to cook his breakfast the next morning and two weeks later, I attended a memorial service for Reverend Massey held by his successor, the Reverend Chambers. Gilbert didn’t come to the service with me. He wasn’t much of a churchgoer, and like he said, ‘I never paid any attention to Reverend Massey when he was alive, so I don’t think he needs my phoney grief now that he’s dead.’ See, Gilbert was kind of cynical about most things. I guess he was unhappy with the way his life turned out, and I suppose my life hasn’t been any better, but I generally manage to remain cheerful.

I don’t want to go into all the details of our past, so I’ll just fill in the relevant bits if and when the story needs a bit of explanation. Okay, where was I? Oh yeah, the memorial service and the first time I laid eyes on Tally Chambers. She certainly didn’t look like a minister’s daughter. She looked kind of….. kind of, well, kind of trashy, you know? Her hair was dyed black and she wore heavy eye make-up and purple lipstick, and lots and lots of silver jewellery. Sally Morrow, my best friend, said it was the Goth look, whatever that was? I mean, we just don’t get Goths living in Endora. Tally clothes were all black and she had black polish on her fingernails. She looked so weird I didn’t notice that she was really pretty, but Sally did. She said to me, ‘If that girl would just scrub off the make-up and put on a dress, she would still be the center of attention around here’. True enough, every head in the church was turned in her direction, and after the service, the congregation stood outside the church and gawped as this girl lit a cigarette and went marching down the street.

I can’t remember if I mentioned the girl to Gilbert when I got home, but I guess I did. In a town as small as this, there isn’t such a lot to talk about. But even if I did tell him, Gilbert probably wasn’t listening. He’d be hunched over the kitchen table, going over the accounts like he did every Sunday. Gilbert is the manager of our local grocery store and he hates it. The only thing that keeps Gilbert sane is his relationship with my friend Sally, and the infrequent visits of his daughter, Mary Jane. I often used to wonder if Gilbert knew that Sally told me everything, but of course he never asked me and I never told him. I mean, he knew that I knew that he and Sally were lovers, it was pretty much an open secret in Endora, but no one seemed to mind too much that the lonely bachelor was warming the bed of the young widow Morrow.

Gilbert and Sally had been an item for the past four years, and the fact that they hadn’t gotten married was not down to a lack of encouragement on my part. I thought they made the perfect couple, and Gilbert was obviously very fond of Sally’s two sons, James and Kevin. But somehow Gilbert seemed to drag his heels when it came to making a commitment to Sally, which was a shame because Sally admitted that she would jump at the chance to be Gilbert’s wife. Naturally, Sally knew about Gilbert’s daughter, and about her mother who had just about broke Gilbert’s heart a dozen times over. I kept telling Gilbert he should go to court to get custody of Mary Anne because Becky was clearly an unfit mother to the child. It would have been nice to have his little girl living with us, and if he and Sally ever made it down the aisle then there was room enough here for all of us, Sally’s boys as well. Enough of my daydreams, I’m wandering off course again. I start to tell you one story and end up telling you another, and believe me, you really don’t want to get me started on Becky Collins.