I never did get an answer to the question I asked on the first page. That is, what did the exchange mean -- Alma Jr. saying "Maybe he's not the marrying kind" and Cassie saying "You don't say much but you get your point across."
Yaadpyar's "the point is that Alma Jr. doesn't think much of Cassie and certainly has no personal affection for her, but if her dad is going to marry, she (Alma Jr.) won't get in the way" doesn't really answer what I was asking. Not that it's wrong; obviously on the surface it's something like that.
But I wondered whether it was deeper than that. When we hear "not the marryin kind" we in the audience know there's a second meaning as well as the obvious one. (He can't be the marryin kind until the Supreme Court's decision 50+ years later!)
So the question is, what did Alma know? Is this supposed to be a throwaway scene, as simple as Cassie digging for answers via girltalk and Alma semi-dodging them -- and only the audience being in on the other meaning, like ha ha that's for sure?
Or does it mean that Alma Jr. gets that meaning, too -- that she secretly knows more than she's letting on (a possibility revisited in the trailer scene at the end)? And although Cassie doesn't fully get that second meaning, the weird way she phrases the reply, "you get your point across" is interesting. On the surface, Alma Jr. didn't really have a "point" -- she's just speculating about Ennis' intentions and states them quite clearly. Cassie might as easily have said something like "We'll see about that," or "Well, I hope I can be the one who changes his mind" or "You don't think so, hunh?" But then the scene would have been simple and obvious.
If Cassie had said, "I get what you're saying -- he's gay" obviously that wouldn't have worked, either. She didn't really get that. But the way Cassie replies gives the line more significance and mystery. This movie doesn't have a lot of simple or obvious scenes.