by Odie Lindsey
“Maybe it’s mutual, Colleen. But here’s the thing. He don’t have a choice anymore. Hare’s back in jail, and headed back to trial. They booked him this morning. Say they’s evidence of jury tamperin’, from way back. So now everybody’s about to be coming after everybody else. Lawyers, feds, media . . . There are men out there you and I don’t even want to think about, Colleen. The type Derby and me grew up around. So he can either deal with me or deal with them. By subpoena, or muscle, he will be a part of this deal.”
Colleen had not felt threatened since deployment. She blushed. “Tell you what, Winnie. You drag your ass out here, and I’ll be happy to—”
The line clicked dead.
Colleen took a belly breath and marched back into the house. She pitched the phone onto the kitchen counter, poured some coffee, and popped a quartet of Tums. Reached deep into the pantry for her grandmother’s old metal spice box, and grabbed the pack of Mistys hidden inside. When she couldn’t find any matches—Derby had confiscated every last flame in the house—she lit the cigarette on the eye of the electric stove.
A part of her felt awful for Derby. Despite years of effort to earn distance from his father, to ignore the man and try to move forward, a news van had confronted her husband in his own goddamned driveway. Winnie, his sister, would bring nothing but trouble.
Colleen didn’t know what Hare Hobbs could or could not do to them. She only knew that there was a murder, of a Black man, long before she was born. That Hare had been tried but set free, and that some folks had branded this a sham, while others claimed him a victim-turned-hero, a resistance fighter of sorts. She understood that Derby’s childhood had been marked by Hare’s public invectives, vile speeches and stunts that some claimed as cover for darker actions.
Over time, the town had ostracized Hare, his family, and by extension their own complicity (though the latter was a long time forgotten). And because Pitchlynn, Mississippi, was a chatty little place, she knew that Derby would now be returned to the front lines of judgment.
So yes, a part of her felt awful for her husband. Yet more so, another part fumed. Fact was, the estate house that Derby had hired on to flip was also the ground zero of his trauma, a space co-defined by Hare Hobbs. The so-called “Wallis House” manor was both historic visual icon and a battlefield of sorts, a site at the dark heart of Pitchlynn itself. Akin to a monument, or burial ground, it was best left undisturbed—lest you stir up a past you never wanted to face.
Derby now flaunted its disassembly. He was all but removing it on behalf of a new owner, an outsider, no less. As if no one would notice. As if no one remembered.
Despite years of refined passivity, her husband had placed himself in the crosshairs of conflict. What’s more, he had positioned her and her children there, too. So the vital question for Colleen was whether Derby would fight what was coming, or burrow deeper into denial.
She favored the former tactic.
4
Derby went to work, he came home. Kept his head down in between. He skirted the landline, the local news, and the sludge-slow browser on the desktop in the den, locking in only on his wife and his any-day-now twins, and what he could do for all of them. He drove to the store or the gas station only when he had to, and when he had to, he favored places removed from his usual routine.
These off-radar hours had soon cobbled into days, and a week became two put behind him. It was as if the media fire around the Hare Hobbs retrial was somewhat contained, leading Derb to believe he’d been reinstated as a Pitchlynn nobody, at work on a Pitchlynn anyplace.
The folly of his assumption was made clear early one morning, care of a mock invasion of women onto the Wallis House front lawn. They wore antebellum hoop skirts and long gingham dresses. Lacy snoods bundled their hair, and tiny reticule purses hung from their wrists. Their leader, an uncommonly tall woman in a white, high-collared hoop dress, had ordered the lot to the base of a massive magnolia, where they idled for further instruction. Parasols were shouldered and fabric fans held at rest. The tall woman then directed the squad not to flinch, or even think, before beckoning a plump young photographer—Hup to!—whose camera straps crisscrossed his chest like bandoliers.
Derby stood at a distance, where he’d been prepping for the work ahead. He chuckled at the cliché throwback of the ladies, until he recognized Susan George Wallis—and she caught sight of him. He turned and walked off toward his truck.
“JP!” she called out. “JP, please!”
Derby kept walking. In response, Susan George double-timed across the lawn, calling out his boss’s name. The closer she came, the faster she spoke: “I know this is a wild scene to come up on! A babbling legion of old women dressed up as even older women, idling on your front lawn. My goodness, I know! I’m sure you must think . . .”
When she finally caught up, Derby turned to face her. “Wrong guy. I’m not JP.”
“Well,” Susan George answered. “You certainly aren’t.” She sized him up, from work boots to tool pouch, to the eyes that wouldn’t meet her own. “Mr. Hobbs, I wouldn’t have expected you here.”
“It’s ‘Friar’ now,” Derby said. “My mother’s maiden name, ‘Friar.’ ”
“How convenient,” Susan George replied. Watching the young man fidget while trying to sidestep his kin, she wanted to peel Derby open, to chew on his grotesquerie. Yet she knew better than to press him, especially now that his father’s retrial was going forward. There was no Wallis family history without a relationship to Hare Hobbs.
She lifted her chin and cocked her eyebrows. “Did I read in the papers that you married that lady veteran?”
“You did. Been some years back, though.”
“Boy, you certainly love your complications, don’t you?”
“Colleen and I are about as plain as it gets.”
She grinned. “You tryin’ to tell me that two pair of boots by the bed doesn’t add a little lemon zest to your relationship? That you aren’t up for takin’ a few orders?”
“Like I say,” Derby replied. “We’re the same as everybody else.”
“Then aye-aye, Mr. Friar.” She mock-saluted. “So anyhow, what brings you to our property?”
“I work here. We’re ’bout to start renovation. We expect it’ll take several—”
“Sorry, but we can’t have that, can we? Can’t just snap our fingers and redefine.”
“I only do what the boss man asks,” Derby said. “Speaking of.” He motioned toward the guesthouse, where his employer, JP, stood idle in the bungalow doorframe, a mug of coffee in his hand. Derby waved the man over.
“You and I will have to speak again,” Susan George ordered. She showcased a smile as she turned to greet JP. “What a gift to finally meet you! We weren’t sure . . . well, we didn’t figure you’d be in town much longer.”
“Sorry,” JP said, shaking her hand, “I didn’t catch your name.”
“Susan George. Wallis.”
“So,” was all he could muster. So this was the woman who’d sent purchase offers for the estate before his wife’s body was at rest. The woman whose correspondence had once included the term “future family,” as if JP could leapfrog Dru’s death. So this was the woman who had raised Dru as much as her own mother had, but who had later shunned the girl, lobbying her parents to send the child off to school. To send her away, for years.
Susan George pointed to the ladies on the far lawn. “We’re generally more on our game about sending advance word of this type of gathering. Marketing the Grandiflora has been such a chore. I’m the mayor, too, you know, so things have been . . .”
So this was Dru’s aunt. His aunt, by extension, though they’d never even met. Despite the fact that he and Dru had come down from Chicago a near-dozen times before she died, Susan George had never brokered an invitation to visit.
“Grandi-what?” JP asked.
“The Grandiflora. It’s a catchphrase we’re working with here in town. A lifestyle brand—that’s the jargon, anyway�
��meant to attract tourists and twenty-first century capital.” She motioned down to the magnolia. “The title comes from that tree.”
Tupelo had Elvis. Tunica had gambling. Oxford had Faulkner and SEC football. In the absence of anything else, Pitchlynn had a handful of stellar antebellum houses, and above all a magnificent Magnolia grandiflora. A record-setter, a marvel. And now, should the hired-gun, Atlanta-based PR firm do their job, a tree to be transformed into a registered brand. An image cast nationwide, Town & Country to Travel + Leisure, AARP to XYZ, to you-name-it; a campaign pitch tailored to “Atlantic and Eastern Seaboarders seeking warm weather, economic bang, and revised, southern charm . . . with a dash of modern whimsy. Duck-fat fried catfish. Kimchi with rib tip, y’all,” and so forth.
JP grunted, looked away. He was annoyed by the women who dimpled his fescue, snapped his gardenias.
“My word,” Susan George muttered. “Forgive me. I am overwhelmed by the ridiculous, and, given all, a bit nervous about meeting you. So let’s back up. Please. We were, are, in disbelief about Dru. I’m devastated. She and my daughter, well. I wasn’t just Dru’s aunt. I feel like I—”
“I wondered,” JP said. “Why isn’t she saying anything about Dru? I wondered.”
Susan George nodded. “You’re right. Again, I fear I am overwhelmed, and—”
“Did you know that she died on a road? My wife? Your niece. That she died walking into a road, on purpose?”
“I am aware of everything, JP. And while I can’t make excuses for how I mourn, I’m certain I could be better at it.” She held a hand out as if to caress him, then let it fall back to her side. “And Lucy? Is she here?”
“Where else would she be?”
“Of course. May I see her?”
“No. The sitter just got her down. It was a rough night. Another rough night.”
“I see,” Susan George said. “Soon, I hope? You know, my own daughter’s name was—”
“Lucinda, yes. I’m aware of my child’s namesake.” He gestured toward the women on his lawn. “So, then?”
“Right,” she replied. “I’ll get on and finish this photo shoot. But JP, one last thing. This will sound abrupt—I’m afraid it is abrupt—but I haven’t been able to visit with you, so I have to intrude while I can. You have never so much as acknowledged our many offers to purchase this property.”
“Correct.”
“As you well know, these are above-and-beyond-market-value offers. Chicago market value, even. Again, this place is the heart of our town. We’ve always honored it as such. And we have always had access.”
“And?”
“And we will of course have access. Though be assured, we’d never change a thing. Wallis House is my father, my daughter, it is Dru. Even you, JP. Plus, we’re spending a whole lot of capital to make it the ‘Welcome To’ icon for new neighbors.”
“This house is a wreck. In fact, Derby and I are about to start—”
“No,” she said. “First, you’ll have to come by Town Hall. Fill out the historic pres application, then file the associated permit requests. Our bylaws are sticky, and they are ironclad. Yet I am certain the board can look into a reasonable Certificate of Appropriateness for you and Mr . . . Mr . . .”
It took Derby a second to realize he’d been cued back into the conversation. “Oh. Friar,” he said. “It’s Friar now.”
“Right. For you and our Mr. Friar.” She turned to walk back down the lawn. “That application must be approved before y’all can shave off a splinter. You hear me? Not a splinter.”
Having mustered beneath the great tree, the ladies tightened their line, standing concave according to height, their backs arched, their lips pursed to within a muscle shy of smile. Susan George strode in front of them, pulling down their breeze-blown flaps of lace, straightening bonnets, and dabbing shine away with her kerchief. She then took her place behind the formation, and cued the doughboy photographer.
JP considered the procedure for a moment, then turned to Derby. “Let’s get to work.”
Before the last of the women had vacated the property, Derb was taking stock of the scaffold frame, paint tarps, linseed oil, and masks; he checked over the new ladder hooks, extension arm, and the infrared paint scrapers. While doing so, he reiterated to JP that they would get the old paint off of the house with a heat plate, gentle detergent, bristle, and lots of time. They would rely on water blast and patience, but no chemicals whatsoever. This was the old way, the right way, he insisted.
Derby did not bring up the fact that repainting the house before structural repair was one hundred percent ass-backward, if not a complete waste of time and money. His boss’s decision to kick things off by applying a bright coral-with-pewter-accented, Eichler midcentury palette to a stodgy white manor wasn’t just discordant, it was vindictive.
It was supposed to be. This project had nothing to do with restoration. The point was to make an assault.
When the scaffolding was assembled against the back wall of the house, JP called it quits for the day. The men ambled over to Derby’s weathered green work truck, grabbing Gatorades from the cooler in the bed.
Derby motioned to the scaffold tower, a visual provocation for any Pitchlynnite of note. “You don’t think we need to take a pause here?” he asked. “Get those permits and whatever ’fore we piss the whole town off?”
“We’re fine,” JP replied. “I’ve looked over all of it, top to bottom. I even know how long it would take them to litigate, if they choose. Besides, Derby, their beef isn’t over history, or policy. It’s about money, plain and simple.”
The young man shook his head. “Not here it isn’t.”
“You’ll see.” JP rapped on the truck a couple of times, then walked off toward his bungalow.
Derby locked his tools in the truck bed job-box, and set out to trek the perimeter of the house, policing any materials or litter left on site. He’d always been the first to arrive at a job, likewise the last to go home. It was a practice he’d followed even when working for bosses who never noticed, or didn’t care. First-to-last was a small marker of who you were. It was an identity you could control.
5
A few days after the rehab began, JP and Derby stood in the muted morning light, staring into the branches of the giant magnolia. Neither man spoke, but only considered the yellow nylon rope, the bottom end of which was tied to a low horizontal limb. The taut line ran upward, high into the crown of the tree, where something pinkish hung behind a dense clutter of leaves.
A kite? JP wondered. No, and not a balloon. But . . .
As if triggered, he bolted beneath the tree skirt and to the trunk, hoisting himself onto a bough. He climbed limb to branch, his upward glances blinded by light-breaks between glossed leaves. It was a thigh, he had understood. Was a thigh on a small body.
At sixty feet or so, the stench of spoiled meat mingled with the magnolia oil. At ninety, JP began to gag on the air, and could only sip quick, shallow breaths. Immune to Derby’s protests, he moved out on horizontal boughs, one at his chest and the other at his feet, as if inching across a rope bridge. Though the limb he stood on began to creak, to crack, he continued on until he saw her in full: her empty eye sockets, and the jowls rolling over the noose. The jellied blood that trickled her shanks, and the skin flaps that curtained her gutted, pale pink belly.
“Derby!” he yelled. “There’s a goddamned sow up here!”
THE MANOR itself was textbook Greek Revival, white on white with pillars and pediment. The property it sat on was parklike, taking up several city blocks, and populated by sugar maple and tupelo, dogwood, elm, and oak. An arcade of towering red cedars lined each side of the long pea-gravel drive. The Pitchlynn Historic Tour bus would idle at the piked iron fence out front, where guides read a script about the elaborate back gardens, “Designed by Vaux, partner of Olmstead,” likewise that the site’s original, Italianate residence had been razed to bricks when Union forces torched the town.
The tou
r guides never mentioned that the current house only arrived on site in 1965, having been trucked into Pitchlynn as part of the Civil War Centennial. They gave no dry description of the flatbed rigs that had carted in disassembled hunks of the former Wallis farmhouse, nor the float-like procession complete with Battle Flag bunting. No, the city-approved narrative never detailed the Wallis family notables who had waved from the rolling-by front porch and balcony, nor the scores of Pitchlynnites who had lined the parade route, their own star-and-bar ensigns flying, welcoming some collective return to prominence.
For all the spectacle jubilance of relocating the renamed “Wallis House” into town, scant attention had been paid to the reassembly of the home itself, nor the upkeep to follow. Despite gleaming white paint and seam tin roof, the Greek Revival’s temple columns were now cored by rot, and the electrical and plumbing lines corroded. Stress cracks jittered the lime plaster walls of the interior, and the wood flooring was cupped from a buckled foundation. Nobody had lived there for a handful of years, since Dru’s parents had passed, within months of each other.
Truth be told, the structural damage was just fine with the townsfolk, as long as the façade of the home was maintained. In fact, truth be told, the giant magnolia out front was far more revered than the manor itself. While the home was in some ways a symbol of who they’d been, the tree was their only true living link to history.
“Bel Arbre,” as it was now known, had been planted in 1867, by the Ladies’ Memorial Association of North Mississippi, a group soon absorbed by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, before reconvening as the “LMA” in the 1960s—so stated the cast-iron marker in front of the estate. A visual record of the tree’s planting hung in the lobby of Pitchlynn Town Hall; the large sepia-tone photo featured rows of elderly Confederates in white, pajama-like gowns, bearded and gaunt, many devoid of limbs, as were flanked by younger women in white dresses and nursing caps. The lot were gathered around the just-plotted sapling, as if it were babe-in-manger.