Georgia Rules

by Nanci Turner Steveson

  Bob gathered a bunch of us kids together one day and took a photo to go with the article. It was printed right in the middle of the front page in black and white. There were eight of us standing with linked arms and smiling faces under the painted sign that read Parkers’ Country Store. I cut the photo out and taped it to the fridge where Mama’d have to see it every time she opened the door.

  People from the church with the steeple came to help customers. Deacon told me in secret that none of them were as much fun as Mama. One lady was a retired bank teller. She sorted out receipts every night, marked things in a book, and deposited money the next day. Then, a cross-country truck driver named Harold, a regular customer who came every other week to pick up fudge for his wife, delivered suitcases full of clean clothes and homework assignments to the family in Boston. Even Haily’s bf, who turned out to be called Ethan Edward, kept the yards in front and back of the store raked. I’d never seen anything like it.

  “It’s called camaraderie,” Deacon said. “Look it up.”

  On the days Deacon didn’t need me after school, I ran. Running wiped the clutter out of my head and helped me think. I had a lot to think about. Finding the magnolia paintings had magnified my connection to my daddy to the zillionth degree. It was like reading his personal diary, and every word was an expression of how much he missed me. After a few days, I stopped going up to look at them because every time I did, I left feeling sad about the years I wasn’t here, and anxious about how desperately I wanted Mama to let us stay.

  On the day Biz was moved out of the ICU, Deacon went to a florist the next town over and bought a bunch of shiny red, green, and blue balloons and tied them to a tree by the road. Everyone who came in that day got a cup of sparkling cider. Ethan Edward connected with Haily on FaceTime, and after they acted all secret and mushy for a few minutes, Haily passed the phone around so we could say hi to some of the others.

  Sue blew us kisses, Sonnet held up an unidentifiable drawing, Kendra flashed a peace sign, and Lucy pressed her face against the screen so all we saw was pink skin and the corner of one blue eye. I went home that night feeling happy and hopeful.

  It was exactly a month after the accident that Biz was moved to a rehab hospital. She was going to be okay, but she had to relearn how to do things like tie her shoes and brush her teeth. Kori stayed with her in Boston, but the rest of the family came home.

  The day they arrived, I rode the bus all the way to the store after school and raced inside. Sue was behind the counter helping customers with Deacon. “Hugs later, Maggs,” she said. “You’re a real champion.”

  I smiled, then ran to the back and took the stairs two at a time. Lucy must have heard me because when I reached the top, the door flew open and she jumped into my arms. “We’re home!”

  Haily pushed past us, her face all bunched up, and stomped all the way down to the store.

  “She wants to go see the bf,” Lucy whispered. “James said she had to help and then she said she was done helping anyone else forever. It wasn’t a very nice thing to say, right, Maggie?”

  Inside, Kendra lugged suitcases down the hall and grumbled about James’s leg keeping him from doing the grunt work. James was on the phone with Kori, getting a report on Biz’s progress since they’d left a few hours before, and Sonnet was at the stove, opening three cans of tomato soup. I set Lucy on the couch and took a suitcase in each hand.

  “Where do these go?”

  “Green to the moms’ room, black to mine.”

  After my delivery, Sue and Haily were back having a hot discussion in the living room. Haily held her cell phone against her stomach.

  “No, you cannot go there. If he wants to help, he can come over here,” Sue said. “But we’ve got a lot of catching up with life to do. No dillydallying.”

  Lucy climbed onto the arm of the couch so she was taller than the rest of us and jammed her hands onto her hips. “And no smooching!” she said.

  The air quit moving. Everyone stopped, everything was still and quiet. Even the usual rumblings from the store downstairs rested while we held our breaths, waiting for what should have come next. The silence reminded us of what we’d almost lost. Biz wasn’t there to repeat Lucy’s words. Until she came home, we’d have to get used to it.

  Seconds ticked by. Finally, Kendra made mouthing motions with her hand and turned to the stairs.

  “Yeah,” she said quietly. “No smooching.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  My first snowflake fell halfway through November. It was the Sunday before Biz was coming home, and when that first white crystal drifted from the sky, I couldn’t help but run outside barefoot to the middle of the field, stretch my arms wide, and lift my face to let a flake land softly on my cheek. It was a sign that things were changing—a beautiful, perfect sign that everything was going to be okay.

  Mama threw the kitchen window open and stuck her head out. “Young lady, you get back inside this instant and put your winter clothes on! Haven’t you got any sense?” The window slammed shut, but Mama stayed and watched me, all bundled up in the white fox-fur coat Peter had given her for their four-year anniversary. I laughed at her and called out, “We’re not in Georgia anymore, Mama, this is what we do in Vermont!” Then I danced around on my tiptoes until they turned red and my ears burned from cold.

  The entire Parker family went to Boston on Friday to collect Biz. As soon as school was out, Bob drove me to the store to wait for them. “No sense chugging through town all stop-and-go on the bus,” he said. “Besides, we get to talk about cross-country skis!” He shoved his Smart car into gear and we sputtered away.

  “I checked in with your mom the other day. She’s having fun with the uniform project, eh? Then, get this.” He tapped my knee. “She was all ready to go to Boston by herself to get skis as a surprise for you. I had to rein her in and explain you have to be fitted for the right kind of boots, poles, the works. I think I let the air out of her balloon.”

  “I bet it was more an excuse just to go to Boston. She met some guy online named Jim who lives near there. Are we getting the skis soon?”

  “Right after Thanksgiving,” he said. “The best place is over near Stowe, and I can’t get away until then. Sound good?”

  “Sounds good.”

  It was dark before the family made it home. Deacon did the closing chores in the store, and I went upstairs to heat a casserole that a neighbor had dropped off. I vacuumed the living room and put fresh sheets on the beds in Biz and Lucy’s room, then sat on the couch with my hands tucked between my knees, waiting.

  After seven weeks in two different hospitals, Biz did not look like Biz when Sue carried her upstairs and set her on the couch next to me. I was totally unprepared. My sweet, chunky Biz wasn’t chunky anymore. Her cheeks sank where they used to be plump, and her head had been shaved. Overgrown peach fuzz covered most of it, except where a curved scar on one side looked like a bloodworm crawling across her skin.

  She saw my anguish and patted the top of my hand. “I look funny,” she said slowly, like a robot. “But I’m okay.”

  Lucy bounced across the couch, clutching a box of tissues. She stuffed a wad in my hand, and used another to wipe a bit of drool dangling from her sister’s lip. “She’s gonna be all combobulated again by Christmas,” she said cheerfully. “Just you see!”

  One side of Biz’s mouth curved up and she rolled her eyes. “Not . . . a . . . real word.”

  Lucy kissed the fuzz on top of her sister’s head, jumped from the couch to the coffee table, then to the carpet, and disappeared. Sue put a red walker in the corner and leaned a bright-blue cane against the couch where Biz could reach it. Haily disappeared with her cell phone glued to her ear, and Kendra went straight to the kitchen to complain because the casserole had pork in it.

  “Doesn’t anyone know how breeding pigs live? They lie on their sides in metal cages their entire life, being stuffed with food and hormones so they can feed babies who will be slaughtered before they’re
even a year old. It’s gross. And none of you should eat it, either. I’m going to tape a picture of a pig farm on the refrigerator.”

  Kori tucked a pillow behind Biz’s neck, then gave her a lap desk and a tiny blackboard with a brand-new box of colored chalk.

  “Occupational therapy,” she said. “She’s got a ways to go, but we’ll get there, right, sweet pea?” She rubbed the back of her hand on Biz’s cheek and went off to set the table.

  “O-c-c-u-p-p-p-a-a-a . . .” Biz shook her head and pointed to her face. “My mouth doesn’t like some words.”

  Lucy bounced into the room again, lugging an armful of stuffed animals. “Which one do you want?”

  Biz pointed to a black and white pony. “Sassy Pants frrrrr.” She shook her head violently and scowled.

  “Don’t try to say it yet,” I said.

  Sonnet looked up from her sketching by the window. “She’s supposed to say everything, otherwise she’ll be stagnant in progress.” She dipped her head back to her notebook and scratched the pencil across the paper.

  Biz leaned her head against my shoulder and looped one arm through mine. Holding out four fingers, she tucked her thumb into her palm.

  “My family.” She sighed, giving me a squeeze. “Frvrrrr.”

  I kissed the top of her head. “Forever,” I whispered.

  I hope.

  TWENTY-NINE

  On Thanksgiving morning, a new layer of puffy white snow clung to the bare branches of the birch trees. The pony shed in the corner of the field looked like an iced gingerbread house. Mama’d been clattering around in the kitchen since dawn, loud enough to scare off the redbirds gathered at the suet feeder. I went downstairs in search of breakfast, but before I could cross into the kitchen, she handed me the toaster and a package of frozen waffles.

  “Out,” she said. Her hair flew wild around her face, and flour coated the front of her robe.

  “What the heck are you making?”

  “It’s Thanksgiving, I’m making all kinds of stuff. Go eat in there, I need all the space I can get. Mr. Jim will be here at two.”

  I stood on the line between the kitchen and family room, toaster and box of frozen waffles in my arms. “Mr. Jim?”

  “He’s our dinner guest. He’s coming up from Boston.”

  “You’re just now telling me this?”

  Mama flipped a page in a cookbook and blew a puff of white dust away.

  “And here I thought all this was for me.”

  No answer.

  “Am I really supposed to call him Mr. Jim?”

  “What else would you call him?”

  “I don’t know, Mr. Jim is just so, so southern. They don’t do that in Vermont. He might not like it.”

  “Well, he’s not from Vermont, he’s from Boston and you, Miss Smarty-Pants, don’t know a thing about Boston manners, so we’re sticking with the Georgia rules. Now scoot. I’m busy.”

  “Why is he coming?”

  “Because it’s Thanksgiving and I invited him.”

  “You told me you weren’t looking for another husband.”

  “I’m not, and don’t you sass me. I’m looking for a way to get out of here the very second our obligation is satisfied. Mr. Jim just might be the person to do that.”

  Tiny hairs on my arms stood on end. “If you’re not thinking about marrying him, what do you want him to do?”

  “He’s interested in buying this place. The entire thing. Cash. On day three hundred and sixty-five. So you be nice. And put on a dress.”

  I stood frozen in that spot, something horrible filling my body. I was too late. I’d waited too long to speak up. Mama didn’t know I wanted to stay in Vermont. I should have shouted, not hinted. Lights danced in front of my eyes. The room filled with a purple glow and I was back in the woods again. The smell of earth rose in the air as I ran past maples and caught the sunlight glinting off rusted buckets hanging from the trees. His voice surrounded me.

  “Someday, Magnolia Grace, these woods will belong to you.”

  I blinked hard. Mama’s head was bent over the cookbook, her index finger running left to right as she read something out loud to herself.

  “No,” I said firmly.

  She looked up, her eyes wide. “Excuse me? No what?”

  I squeezed the toaster and waffle box tighter. “I don’t want to sell the farm, Mama. I want to stay here.”

  “Pffff. What kind of nonsense are you thinking of?” she said, turning back to her cookbook. “Why on earth would we stay here when we’ll be able to live anywhere we want? Now go on. I’m busy.”

  “No!” I said, louder. Her head jerked up. “It’s my farm and we’re not selling it.”

  “What has gotten into you?”

  The toaster and box of waffles clattered to the floor. Leftover crumbs spilled across polished wood. Mama’s face exploded into more shades of red than I knew existed. I left her standing there with her mouth half open, ran up the stairs, and slammed my bedroom door so hard the lamp rattled. She didn’t follow. Ten minutes later, I was making tracks through the iced woods, running all the way to the sugar shack. Inside, I planted my face and arms on the table and let loose a thousand tears. The day had come when I had to fight for my daddy’s farm, and I’d already lost round one. I felt hopelessly unprepared.

  At exactly two o’clock a shiny black car pulled into the driveway. Mama hadn’t said one word about the morning’s incident, which made me feel as important as the discarded plastic wrapper she’d peeled off a grocery store pie.

  “He’s here,” I said. “Oh, yippee . . .”

  She pushed past me and thrust an apron in my hands, then fluffed her hair in front of the hall mirror. “Hide that, sugar, and be polite.”

  I went to wait on the window seat in the living room. There was some kind of fuss in the hallway when the famous Mr. Jim came inside. Mama oohed and aahed, they both laughed, the coat closet opened and closed, and then there they were, standing side by side, staring at me. Mama held a massive bouquet of orange and yellow lilies in her arms.

  “Jim, this is my daughter,” she said. She leaned close to him and whispered, “The one I told you about.”

  I stood up. “Hello,” I said. It was all I could manage.

  Mr. Jim crossed the room and took my hand. “Hello, ah, I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name.”

  “It’s Magnolia Grace, sir, but you can call me Maggie,” I said.

  “Lovely,” he said. “And please, call me Jim. Up here in the North, it makes us feel old to be called sir.”

  As much as I wanted to hate him, I couldn’t help noticing his eyes crinkled at the corners like Kori’s, and they were every bit as blue as Lucy’s.

  “Thank you.”

  The three of us stood silently in this awkward circle, Jim watching my face, Mama watching him watch me, and me feeling like I was on display in a freak museum.

  Jim held out a white gift bag. “A token of appreciation for having me spend this special day with you and your mother.”

  Mama pushed the bag into my hands. “Go ahead, sweetheart, open it.”

  Inside were two books. The first one was full of glossy, color photos of the flora and fauna of New England. The second was a tiny green volume of poems with ivory pages edged in gold.

  “It’s Robert Frost,” Jim said, his face all shiny and bright. “He lived here, you know, in Vermont. There’s a farm in Shaftesbury, and he spent a lot of time in Ripton, near Middlebury. Have you been there yet?”

  “No, sir. Sorry, I mean Jim.”

  Mama fluttered her hands around her face. “I told him how much you like to read, sugar, and how you were always wanting to go to the library to look up things about Vermont trees and such. He said he knew just what to bring you, isn’t that right, Jim?”

  A) I’d only asked her to take me to the library once, and B) I didn’t want Jim to give me a thoughtful gift. He was only trying to butter me up. That nixed anything nice about him, crinkly blue eyes, or books of birds
and poetry.

  I tilted my chin up. “Thank you so much.”

  Another uncomfortable pause. Mama got nervous and started talking too fast.

  “Jim, could you build us a nice fire while I get the hors d’oeuvres ready? I think I got all the necessary ingredients. For the fire I mean. The hors d’oeuvres are done. We didn’t have any need for a fireplace in the South, as you might imagine. Precious, you stay back now while Mr. Jim does that. Oh, look, the redbirds are back—they flew away this morning. We love the redbirds, don’t we, sugar? I’m sure there’ll be all sorts of information about them in that pretty new book of yours.”

  She flitted away to get the hors d’oeuvres. I settled in to watch Jim build a fire like it was the most interesting thing I’d ever seen, but really, I was silently plotting my next move.

  THIRTY

  Jim sliced a shiny knife into the breast of the bird.

  “This turkey is magnificent!”

  “It’s fresh killed, from a real turkey farm on the way to Burlington. I drove all the way there on Monday to get it. Sugar, pass me the dressing, please.”

  Jim had never had sweet potato casserole or green bean casserole, and he called dressing “stuffing” because, he said, before people knew about turkey and salmonella it used to be cooked inside the bird. Like stuffed into that big hole when the bird was still raw. They talked about polite things while we ate, and after we finished with the turkey and dressing and potatoes and casseroles and cranberries and all the rest, Mama brought in a pecan pie and held it out like a prize.

  “I had the pecans shipped special from Georgia.”

  It wasn’t one hundred percent a lie. She’d taken the grocery store pie and topped it with pecans that came in a package with Georgia written across the front, then added butter and brown sugar and baked it long enough for everything to glaze together. She went off to get coffee, but I kept my mouth shut, waiting, like a tiger, to be poked. For the plan I’d come up with to work, it had to be Mr. Jim who did the poking.