Saving CeeCee Honeycutt

by Beth Hoffman

  While I was savoring the treats in private, someone let out a joyous yelp. I turned to see Oletta throw her arms in the air and wave like she was flagging down a taxi.

  In through the garden gate came Chessie and Nadine, dressed to the nines. To my stunned delight, shuffling behind them were Sapphire, Miz Obee, and Flossy. Cradled in each of Miz Obee’s arms was a pot of orchids. I jumped from the bench and bolted through the garden. When they saw me coming, they smiled. Even ornery old Sapphire gave me a sly, crooked grin. One by one I embraced them, feeling my chest swell with gladness. Miz Obee nodded furiously at my dress, indicating her overwhelming approval.

  Aunt Tootie came up behind me, rested her hands on my shoulders, and thanked them all for coming. She took Sapphire by the arm and guided her to a table beneath the canopy. Within moments a server arrived with a tray of cool drinks. Miz Obee was puffed up with pride, smiling shyly when she presented Aunt Tootie with a pale pink orchid. Streaks of crimson, as thin as dental floss, disappeared into the flower’s deep, yellow-speckled throat. It was so beautiful it didn’t look real. Aunt Tootie made a fuss over it and exclaimed it was the most gorgeous orchid she’d ever seen. I ran to pull Mrs. Odell from the crowd, led her back to the table, and introduced her to everyone. Miz Obee’s cheeks flushed with pleasure when she offered a pot of yellow orchids to Mrs. Odell.

  Mrs. Odell’s eyes grew bright. “Oh, thank you,” she said, lightly touching a petal. “It’s a living jewel.”

  Before they settled at the table, I gathered everyone together so I could take a group picture. I blew on the photograph as I watched it develop in my hand. Within a minute or two, I was holding the finest picture I’d ever taken.

  Aunt Tootie excused herself and headed for the house to check on things in the kitchen. I followed her, and when we stepped into the back hall, I reached for her arm and held her back. “How did you know?”

  “You mean about Sapphire and her friends?” She cupped her hand beneath my chin. “I knew because Oletta told me. She said you were quite a hit with everyone at Green Hills Home.”

  “I was?”

  “Yes, you certainly were. So I asked Oletta if they’d like to come to your party, and they were delighted by the invitation. Chessie and Nadine are so kind and thoughtful, they offered to drive all the way out there and pick them up.”

  Aunt Tootie looked into my eyes and smiled. “Cecelia Rose, you are one very popular young lady. Everyone thinks you’re so lovely. I can’t tell you how proud you’ve made me.”

  Her words swirled around me like stars. Could it be that I, Cecelia Rose Honeycutt, the outcast from Willoughby, Ohio, had become popular? I hugged Aunt Tootie, marveling at the thought of it. What a gallant woman she was, swooping into my life and opening her heart and home to me, and never once had she asked for a thing in return. What I did to deserve her kindness, I’d never know.

  I was fi lling a plate with cookies for everyone at the table when in through the garden gate waltzed Miz Hobbs. She was wearing a black hat and a disturbing yellow sundress printed with large black and red circles. Her rear end looked just like a giant bull’s-eye. When she saw me standing by the pastry table, she wiggled her way across the patio in those absurd itty-bitty steps she always took.

  “Cecelia, I hardly recognized you all dressed up,” she said with exaggerated surprise, planting a kiss on my cheek. “What a beautiful dress. You look like a vanilla cupcake! Tootie always did have impeccable taste. But I must say I’m surprised you still haven’t gotten your hair cut. Remember what I told you about those awful hippies?”

  “I’ll tell Aunt Tootie you’re here,” I said, wiping her lipstick from my cheek with a napkin.

  As I started to walk away, Miz Hobbs turned to a woman in a yellow dress and said, “What in the world are all those nigras doing here! Has Tootie lost her mind?”

  I was so mad I wanted to rip her lips off.

  I settled at the table next to Mrs. Odell and glared at Miz Hobbs. She shimmied her way through the clusters of women with a plate of food in one hand and a drink in the other, nodding and sending kisses through the air like she was a movie star. When she sat at the table next to ours, Miz Goodpepper let out a sniff and angled her chair so her back was to Miz Hobbs.

  “I’m in love with the live oaks,” Mrs. Odell said. “And I can’t wait to see the magnolias bloom in the spring. How beautiful they must be.”

  Miz Goodpepper, who was fanning herself with her hat, raised her voice. “Oh, Gertrude, magnolia blossoms smell so delicious they’ll make your heart ache. I had a gorgeous magnolia in my garden, but while I was out of town this past spring, my evil neighbor murdered it.”

  Miz Obee’s jaw dropped, Flossy scooted closer, and Sapphire looked at Miz Goodpepper like she’d lost her mind. Mrs. Odell swallowed a bite of cookie with a gulp. “Murdered your tree?”

  “Yes,” Miz Goodpepper hissed, narrowing her eyes to slashes of blue. “She had it chopped down in cold blood.”

  Miz Hobbs stiffened as Miz Goodpepper spewed out the story of the murdered magnolia. Miz Goodpepper’s voice was steeped in loathing when she said, “My neighbor is not only a lowly tree murderer but she also performs a striptease for one lucky member of the local police department.”

  Everyone gasped. Well, everyone except Sapphire. She laughed.

  Fueled by far too many Long Island iced teas, Miz Goodpepper leaned back and spoke over her shoulder, “So, tell us, Violene, how’s Earl? He’s about due for another spanking, isn’t he?”

  Miz Hobbs jumped from her chair, eyes blazing. “You bitch,” she screamed through a mouthful of pâté. “So you’re the one who sent all those disgusting pictures and clever little notes!”

  Miz Goodpepper rolled her eyes in an exquisite look of distaste. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I do know that Earl Jenkins sure does like it when you spank him, especially when you’re wearing that ludicrous chicken outfit.”

  Miz Hobbs’s jowls shook with fury. She reached over, dragged her fingers through the pâté on her plate, and smeared it across Miz Goodpepper’s cheek.

  With a smile as brief and deadly as a flash of lightning, Miz Goodpepper wiped it away with her napkin. “Well, Violene, this has just proved what I’ve known for twenty years. You can haul the girl out of the trash, but you can never haul the trash out of the girl.”

  “You think you’re so damned lily-white and such an upstanding citizen? Well, I’ve got news. You are a sick exhibitionist—out there naked in broad daylight every Sunday morning, splashin’ around in that ridiculous outdoor bathtub of yours while the rest of us are getting ready for church.”

  Miz Goodpepper smirked and rose to her feet. “Screaming ‘Oh, God!’ from your bed is the closest you have ever been to church.”

  Aunt Tootie set off across the patio in a furious click of heels. “Now, y’all mind your manners and stop this nonsense right now.”

  Miz Goodpepper snatched Miz Hobbs’s hat from her head and hurled it across the garden like a flower-studded Frisbee. Miz Hobbs lunged forward, grabbed a shoulder strap of Miz Goodpepper’s sundress with one hand, and started walloping her butt with the other. They spun in circles as the words “bitch” and “tramp” and “slut” exploded in the air like bottle rockets.

  Everyone scrambled to get out of the way—well, everyone but Sapphire, who was enjoying the spectacle immensely. She stayed glued to her chair, cupped her old gnarled hands around her mouth, and hollered, “Get her, Thelma. Whup her ass real good.”

  Miz Hobbs and Miz Goodpepper spun across the patio like a chiffon tornado, slapping and spanking each other. I could hardly believe it when Miz Goodpepper took hold of Miz Hobbs’s beaded necklace and attempted to strangle her, but the necklace broke in her hand and a clatter of glass beads rained down on the patio.

  They shrieked like murder as they careened into the dessert table. Silver trays fi lled with cookies and petit fours flew into the air like birds fleeing a gunshot while Miz Goodpepper and
Miz Hobbs tumbled to the ground.

  Everyone stood, wide-eyed and speechless, as the two of them lay in a heap of crushed cookies and torn dresses. Aunt Tootie lifted a jagged piece of a broken cake plate from the ground and cried, “This belonged to Taylor’s mother!”

  Miz Hobbs let out a painful groan and rolled on her back. She looked like she’d stepped on a land mine. Miz Goodpepper sat up, took one look at Miz Hobbs, and began to laugh. I was stupefied when she pulled herself up from the bricks, reached out, and offered to help Miz Hobbs get up. Miz Hobbs was so angry she slapped her hand away, which only made Miz Goodpepper laugh harder.

  “Oh, stop it, Violene,” Miz Goodpepper said with a snort, offering her hand again. “It’s over. We just cleared up twenty years of bad karma. I feel thoroughly cleansed. This has been a spiritual enema.”

  Everyone roared with laughter.

  “Come on, Violene,” Miz Goodpepper said, “let’s go home.”

  Miz Hobbs crawled to her knees. She reluctantly took hold of Miz Goodpepper’s outstretched hand and hissed under her breath, “Exhibitionist bitch.”

  “Tree-murdering tramp,” Miz Goodpepper said with a laugh as she hauled Miz Hobbs to her feet.

  Miz Goodpepper turned to my aunt. “I don’t know how I’ll ever make this up to you, Tootie, but I guarantee I’ll try.”

  Aunt Tootie’s face was flushed with anger when she walked toward her eccentric neighbors, but her graciousness prevailed when she raised her hands and said, “It’s all right. What are a few broken dishes among friends? Now, y’all go on home and pull yourselves together.”

  They limped across the patio in opposite directions, vaulting halfhearted insults at each other. Miz Goodpepper disappeared through the opening in the hedge while Miz Hobbs threw open the garden gate. The congregation of women laughed and clapped while Louie let out a squawk and strutted after Miz Goodpepper.

  An elderly woman with a dowager’s hump and emerald earrings the size of gumdrops walked toward Aunt Tootie. “I never thought I’d live to see the day when any party could top the one I had back in ’37, but this one just did.”

  Another woman laughed and said, “Tootie, you always have the best parties. I can’t wait to tell my sister Irene about it—she’ll be sick to death she missed it.”

  Everyone began talking at once, telling stories of the party disasters they’d witnessed.

  One woman told a story of a spectacular wedding catastrophe that involved a missing girdle and a “marvelously embarrassing” toast given by a drunken best man. The stories had everyone howling, each woman trying to top the story before hers.

  While listening to the laughter swirl around me, the strangest thing happened: my whole world turned pink, and an effervescent kind of warmth fi lled me with a sense of belonging I’d never known.

  I turned and looked at Aunt Tootie’s house, my gaze traveling to my sleeping porch, up to the huge trees, and into the bright Georgia sky. And as I stood there, soaking in the wonder of my new life, I knew Savannah was my home. I was safe here, I belonged, and I knew I always would.

  As angry and hurt as I’d been when my father sealed my fate and sent me to live with Aunt Tootie, I knew he had spoken the truth when he’d said, “One day you’ll thank me for this. Believe me, you will.”

  Maybe I’d write him a letter and tell him just how right he was. Not anytime soon, but one day.

  From the corner of my eye I saw Miz Obee working her way across the patio, happily gathering beads from Miz Hobbs’s broken necklace. She dropped them, one by one, down the front of her dress.

  Everyone pretended not to notice.

  Later that evening, after we’d all said good night and headed for bed, I stood at my window. The Spanish moss hung from the trees like miles of torn green lace, and far below, the yellow-and-white-striped canopy appeared to float in the air, as if suspended by the buoyant memories of a day that had surely reached the height of garden party infamy. Off in the distance a candle flickered from a table on Miz Goodpepper’s porch. A fleeting ghost of white moved across her lawn, and a moment later I heard the squeak of a spigot followed by the splash of water. By the thin light of the moon I watched her lift a glass to her lips and take a slow sip of wine. After pinning up her hair, she pushed her robe off her shoulders. It slid down her body and pooled at her feet like buttermilk. A moment later she stepped into the tub and lowered herself out of sight.

  On top of my chest of drawers sat the photographs I’d taken at the party. Carefully I tucked each picture around the mirror frame. From an envelope in the top drawer of my dresser, I removed the picture I’d taken of Lucille and Rosa at their Friday street picnic and slid it alongside the others. I pulled the ribbon from my hair and draped it over the top of the mirror, weaving it around the pictures. When I was done, I stepped back to admire my creation. It looked like a wreath.

  From one woman’s face to the next I went, studying each smile. And as I did, a strange, nameless feeling brushed over my skin. I walked across the room and pulled my mother’s scrapbook from beneath the mattress. Dried-out sheets of protective fi lm crackled as I leafed through the pages—pages that, like my mother’s dreams, had become smudged by the passage of time. I turned to the picture of her standing on the pageant platform. Momma’s eyes gleamed with hope and promise, and her brunette hair tumbled across her shoulders, lush and shiny. Her perfect white dress was as crisp as a brand-new day, and twinkles of light sparked from her tiara. And, of course, there was that silly green sash she had coveted so much, draped from shoulder to hip: 1951 VIDALIA ONION QUEEN.

  Carefully I pulled the picture from the scrapbook. After blowing off a few specks of dust, I took it across the room and leaned it against the mirror. And there they were, all the women in my life. It struck me that, other than Momma and Mrs. Odell, I hadn’t known any of them at the beginning of the summer, yet every single woman had pressed her fingers against the pages of my Life Book, making her own unique, indelible impression.

  I turned and gazed into the sky. The night was as thick as spilled ink, and high above the trees I could see the faint twinkle of a single star.

  “Hi, Momma,” I whispered. “I hope you made it to heaven all right. Is it pretty there? Do you have a girlfriend to talk with? I figure you already know this, but I live in Savannah with Aunt Tootie. I used to get annoyed when you’d talk about the South all the time, but now I understand why you loved it so much. Mrs. Odell is here too. Did you know that? I start school tomorrow, and I’m a little worried about it. I don’t know how things work up there in heaven, but if you can, please send me some good luck. Good night, Momma.”

  I wasn’t very tired so I curled up in bed with the book Miz Goodpepper had given me. But as wonderful a storyteller as Eugene Field was, his words failed to hold my attention. Every paragraph or two I’d glance over at the photograph of my mother, feeling an odd sense of wonder, as if it were the first time I had ever seen it.

  I’d never know why those turbulent storms had raged in her mind, or if, on that brilliant June day, she had slipped her feet into her red shoes and danced into the path of that truck with the intent of freeing herself from a life that had become unbearable. In my heart I wanted to believe it was an accident—that maybe she’d seen something across the road that delighted her, and for a brief, blindingly bright moment, she forgot where she was and what she was doing. I’d like to believe the policeman was right, that it happened so fast she didn’t feel a thing.

  For the most part I had begun to make peace with the life I had back in Willoughby. But like a deep bruise, the memory of Momma’s final day jolts me whenever I bump up against it.

  I suspect it always will.

  So much about my mother’s life and death would forever remain a mystery, but as I lay in bed, sifting through memories of her, there was one thing I knew for certain: even during her wildest moments, when fireworks flashed in her eyes and her hair stood on end, Momma had loved me.

  It was with that thoug
ht that I sat up, slid open the top drawer of my night chest, and removed the pink satin pouch. Momma’s necklace slid into my hand, and I held it beneath the lamplight, admiring its soft luster, and how, when I squinted my eyes, I could see the tiny imperfections in each pearl. Like I’d done so many times before, I smoothed them between my fingers until they grew warm. And I remembered the story Momma had told me—how the oyster had yawned and a grain of sand had lodged in its mouth, eventually becoming a pearl. At the time I had thought it was just something she’d made up, but years later I read a book about the wonders of the ocean, and sure enough, my mother had told me the truth. It was her version of the truth, but the truth just the same.

  I turned out the light and lay my head against the pillow, breathing in the fragrant night air, liking the feel of my mother’s pearls in my hand. And just as I drifted off to sleep, I heard her words float in with the breeze, “It’s how we survive the hurts in life that brings us strength and gives us our beauty.”

  Thirty

  I could hardly believe it. Who was that girl in the mirror? From side to side I turned, a goofy grin on my face, as if I were rehearsing for a toothpaste commercial. But I couldn’t help it. This was the first time in my life I felt proud of who I was, and, well—maybe even a little bit pretty. Oletta had washed and pressed my new blouse to perfection, the plaid patterns of my kilt matched exactly from one pleat to the next, and the buttons of my new red blazer gleamed in the early morning light like a row of lucky pennies. As I ran my fingers over the Rosemont School for Girls crest that was sewn to the breast pocket of my blazer, I felt like I was dreaming.

  After adjusting my knee socks and folding over the tops, I tied the laces of my new saddle shoes into perfect bows.