Georgia Rules

by Nanci Turner Steveson

  “She taught us how to do it,” Biz whispered.

  Mama set a cup on the piano for Sonnet. “Would you play for us?” she asked.

  Sonnet’s fingers flowed across the piano keys like they belonged there. The music settled everything down as we ate cookies and dug through boxes. Mama was right smack in the middle of it, telling stories about each ornament. She was so theatrical, if I hadn’t seen them arrive just the other day, I would have loved the history behind each and every one. Except that she was lying to my friends. I did not love that part.

  Haily and Ethan Edward arrived with Deacon. Somehow we scrunched all those people into that little front room and for a while, the evening was jolly. Then Haily pulled out the Georgia peach and held it up.

  “Ooooo, I like this. Do you have one of the magnolias?”

  The music stopped. Mama froze, her hand in the air holding up a glittery snowflake.

  “A magnolia?” I asked.

  “The ones Johnny Austin made. We each have one. Didn’t he send one to you?”

  “Magnolias symbolize strength, perseverance, dignity, a love of nature,” he’d said. Then he cupped his hands. Cradled inside was a beautiful wood ornament. “There won’t be any magnolias in Vermont until you come back.”

  He’d given it to me in Georgia, but I had no memory of seeing it after that day. “He gave me one. But I don’t know where it is.”

  “It’s in your box,” Mama said quickly.

  “My box? What box?”

  A piece of silver tinsel drifted from Mama’s hair. Her eyes pleaded with me. Not now.

  “Where we keep his letters, remember?”

  “What letters?”

  “Did I say something wrong?” Haily asked.

  Mama startled, like she’d forgotten anyone else was there except the two of us. “No, no, it’s not you. Christmas is such a . . . it’s our first here all alone, and our first party. I feel a little clumsy, I’m sorry.”

  She was lying again. There was no box and we both knew it. What had she done with the ornament? Had she hidden it away because it wasn’t all glittery and shiny like her others? Is that the real reason we’d left, because she wanted a husband who was polished and all in one piece?

  “Mama’s not used to serving guests by herself,” I said bitterly. “She only knows how to be a rich man’s wife.”

  When I saw the look on Kori’s face, I wished I could take the words back and swallow them. She was shocked and sad and disappointed in me. She was the last person on earth I ever wanted to disappoint.

  “I’m sorry—”

  Mama interrupted. “That’s the truth, though—she’s right.”

  Even after what I’d said, she was sticking up for me.

  “But here I am, giving it a go. You should have seen all the cookies I burned this afternoon. What a mess! I’m just lucky we have such patient guests for my trial run.”

  “What’s a trial run?”

  “You’re not running.”

  I ducked my head and pushed past them to escape before tears exploded from my eyes, but I didn’t get out before I heard Mama say, “It means we did things differently in Georgia. I’m trying to learn new rules. The Vermont rules.”

  I didn’t go to the tree lot the next day, even though it was Saturday. I was too ashamed to face anyone, and too angry with Mama to even go downstairs when she was around. I was mad at her for so many things, including the way she stuck up for me after I’d been so mean.

  It was dark when the doorbell rang that evening. I looked out the upstairs window and saw James’s truck idling in the driveway, then ran back to my room and shut the door. Five minutes later my phone beeped. It was a text with a picture of Lucy standing in our front hallway, holding a whole pie in her hands.

  Do you think we don’t have fights at our house? Leaving the pie for tonight. See you at the lot tomorrow.

  I put the phone down and laid my head on the pillow. A minute later the phone beeped again.

  Lu says to tell you it’s blueberry, as blue as her eyes.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  The Tuesday before Christmas break, Mama said she had to go to Boston for a couple of days and I would be staying with Kori and Sue. The word Boston made me think instantly of Mr. Jim. My stomach soured. I didn’t even lift my head from my homework.

  “Fine with me.”

  I hadn’t come up with any new plan yet to convince her we should stay in Vermont, and now she was possibly going to see Mr. Jim again. I was stumped. Being stumped made me grumpy. I didn’t feel like being nice to her.

  It was after nine when I put my books and folders into my backpack and set it by the door. Mama was watching TV on the couch.

  “I’m going to bed,” I said, heading toward the stairs.

  She popped up. “Oh, wait, is there anything special you’d like me to bring back? Something for under the tree I might not have known you wanted?”

  I could have left it alone. I could have done like we always did and told her something meaningless, like a new set of headphones or clothes. She loved it when I asked for clothes. But this time I didn’t. Maybe the universe was pushing me in the direction I needed to go for the Stay-in-Vermont Action Plan to work. Maybe I was tired of pretending. Or maybe it was both.

  “Nothing. And whatever else you got me, you should probably take back, because it won’t be what I want.”

  “I do know what you want, sugar—”

  “No, apparently you don’t,” I said, surprisingly composed. “I want to keep this farm. I don’t want to sell it to Mr. Jim or anyone else. I need you to understand that I’ve never felt like I belonged anywhere until we moved here. I want you to know who I am, to understand the real me, the one who came to be after we got to Vermont. I know you thought giving me things instead of my daddy was right. I know you thought you were protecting me. I get that, Mama. But you were wrong. I needed him all along. You should have let me pick, and now it’s too late.”

  I turned to go upstairs and left her at the bottom, holding the banister like it was the only thing keeping her upright. About three quarters of the way up I heard a noise, like a tiny gasp. Or a whisper. Maybe it was wishful thinking. Or maybe I really did hear her say, “It was a mistake.”

  My stomach was in all kinds of knots in the morning, thinking Mama was planning to meet up with Mr. Jim. At lunch I snuck down the hallway to Deacon’s office and slipped inside without knocking.

  “Am I allowed to come in and ask you a question that isn’t about school? I’m on lunch.”

  He shoved some papers into a blue folder and laid it on his desk. “You can ask me anything. Want to close that door?”

  My throat was clogged as a Georgia highway. Where to start?

  “Did you know Mama wants to sell the farm and move at the end of our year?”

  “Not for sure, but it doesn’t surprise me.”

  “Can she do that? I mean is she allowed to if I don’t want to sell, since it’s mine?”

  He sat back in his chair and made a teepee with his fingers. “That’s complicated. The short answer is yes and no.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “Do you mean that’s not the answer you want to hear?”

  “You know what I want to know!”

  “The trust is set up so after you’ve satisfied the obligation of living here one year, if you want to sell it, you can. That’s not what your father wanted, but that’s what he decided.”

  “But—”

  He held up a hand. “I’m getting to it. I know you want to stay—I’ve seen it since that first time you went down to the sugar shack. Unfortunately, your mama can sell it regardless, with one caveat.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Stipulation.”

  “And?”

  “Until you are twenty-one, I have to sign any sale papers, too.”

  “Because you’re the trustee?”

  He nodded. “Exactly.”

  “And you wouldn’t, right
? Because you know he wanted me to stay?”

  “That’s correct. I would not if I thought you were against selling it.”

  “So I’m okay? I don’t have to worry?”

  “Not about it being sold, if that’s not what you want.”

  “That’s all I want. What else is there to worry about?”

  “Maggie, I have no guardianship over you. Until you’re a legal adult, if your mama decides to move the two of you to Timbuktu or Alaska or anywhere else, there’s nothing I can do to keep you here.”

  “Wait, she can make me move away even if we keep the farm?”

  “Yes,” he said quietly. “Even if you keep the farm.”

  That first night at the Parkers’ I was miserable. Between the ruckus with Mama and what I learned from Deacon, everything looked gray and hopeless. Mama and I tiptoed around for two days before she went to Boston, each of us afraid to say something that would reopen the festering wound. When I got on the bus the morning she was leaving, she stood in the front window and watched it drive away.

  That evening, I curled up on the big couch in the Parkers’ living room and wiped tears away before they fell. Lucy scrunched her body close to mine and patted my arm. Biz sat on the floor and gave a running commentary of what was happening to the orphaned baby elephant on Animal Planet. James was working at the library. Kendra and Sonnet passed tape back and forth at the kitchen table, talking about the presents they were wrapping for the old people at the veterans home. Haily was trying to curl her hair in the bathroom and talk to Ethan Edward on the phone at the same time. She dropped the curling iron on her toe and squealed.

  Lucy rolled her eyes. “The bf makes her so weird.”

  The house phone rang. I knew it was Mama because Kori took it into her bedroom to talk in private. She stayed in there half an hour, and when she came out she smiled at me like she was sorry about something.

  Eventually, the concert of voices, the smell of homemade pies baking in the oven, and the way Kori touched the top of my head every time she walked by soothed my brokenness. When the baby elephant found a surrogate mother on TV, Biz and Lucy flung their arms over their heads and cheered. The show ended with a clip of the grown-up elephant walking away across a savanna with its adopted baby trailing behind, as if no problem in the world couldn’t be solved by a mother’s love.

  Kendra came from the kitchen and clicked the TV off.

  “No more tonight,” she said with authority.

  Biz and Lucy wailed at the same time. It was hard to sort out until Kori came in and put a finger to her lips.

  “It’s the Jimmy Stewart movie night!” Biz cried.

  “I know, you can watch it, stop fussing.” Kori took the clicker from Kendra and the TV came back on. “We can break the rule. It’s the first night of winter break.”

  Kendra rolled her eyes and marched off. Lucy pulled my head toward her and whispered, “Really, it’s because you’re here.”

  Over the next few hours there were bowls of hot chicken stew with fluffy little dumplings floating on top that we got to eat in the living room. James came home and plopped down at the other end of the couch to watch the movie with us. Haily went out with Ethan Edward. Kendra and Sonnet ran up and down the stairs at least a dozen times, collecting trinkets from the store to wrap. And Mama called again. Kori motioned to the phone held against her body.

  “You want to talk to her?”

  I shook my head and turned back to the television, where an angel had just gotten his wings.

  THIRTY-SIX

  “We only didn’t get to go in the sleigh one time,” Lucy said the next day. “And that’s because it rained instead of snowed.”

  “Global warming,” Kendra muttered.

  “We almost didn’t get to do it this year at all.” Biz pointed to her head. “I mean, I don’t think they’d do it if I was dead.”

  James buckled leather straps around Sassy’s shoulders. Behind her was a shiny black sleigh that I was actually going to ride in to deliver presents to the veterans home.

  “Biz, you would have looked down from heaven and told us to get on over there with the presents and pies, and you know it.”

  Lucy clapped mittened hands together. “After the old timers’ home, we cut down our own tree!”

  “Why do you cut a tree when you’ve got all those left over there?”

  Kendra dumped a load of brightly wrapped presents into a canvas bag in the back of the sleigh. “Last ones. And we cut our own tree because we can.”

  “You weren’t even here last year, so how do you know?” Biz chided.

  “Yeah, how do you know?” Lucy repeated.

  Kendra made mouthing motions with her hand and walked away. “Your parrots are squawking again.”

  Biz put her hands on her waist and imitated Kendra swishing her hips. “She and Sonnet think they’re so cool.”

  Lucy held her hair out like Kendra’s and wiggled. “So coooool.”

  “Okay, enough, both of you,” James said. “Go tell the moms we’re almost ready.”

  Biz bolted for the house with Lucy on her heels. “Wait! I want to tell them! No fair! Slow down!”

  James watched them and smiled. “Lucy forgets there was a time when we didn’t know if her sister would be here to run ahead of her.”

  He buckled the shafts of the sleigh to the harness, then clipped a string of gold bells to a leather strap across Sassy’s back. Lucy and Biz scrambled into the backseat and pulled a heavy wool blanket over their laps. Sue and Kendra got in the Jeep and headed toward the road, followed by Kori and Sonnet in the pickup. Boxes of pies were stacked in the back.

  “Where’s Haily?” I asked.

  James pointed to the store. She and Ethan Edward stood in the window watching us leave. “They’re in charge for the day. God help the customers.”

  “Ready?” Kori called out the window.

  James gave her the thumbs-up, then motioned for me to get in next to him. “Lay that over yourself. It gets a lot colder once we start moving,” he said, pointing to a red-plaid blanket.

  He pulled one rein and clucked, telling Sassy to turn toward the road. The sleigh jerked and swerved when it first hit the ice. There was nothing even close to a seat belt to keep me from tumbling out the side, so I curled my fingers tightly around the seat cushion. Once on the road, the runners glided smoothly on packed snow. Sassy Pants’s hindquarters bounced up and down with each step, making it look like the heart was dancing. The bells jingled and we whisked past bare trees glistening under the bright winter sun. Biz and Lucy giggled nonstop in the back.

  We’d been moving along for a few minutes when James handed me the reins.

  “Really?”

  “Go for it,” he said.

  If I were still in Georgia, three days before Christmas, I’d be at the mall with Irene, the two of us buying each other meaningless presents with our parents’ credit cards. I’d missed out on so much, not being here in Vermont with my daddy and the birch trees and the maple grove and the sugar shack and friends who loved me just the way I am. I’d never have seen the magnolia paintings, or heard my daddy’s voice, or known people who said he was a really good man.

  But for now, I was here. I took the reins and smiled so wide my teeth hurt from the cold.

  James showed me how to pull the sleigh up to the front of the nursing home, where a uniformed man and woman stood at attention. James jumped out and saluted them one at a time before a pair of nurses eased the veterans into wheelchairs and rolled them inside.

  Lucy raised her arms for me to lift her out. “Last year, this old man threw up all over Sonnet!”

  “Yeah,” said Biz. “And this lady kept yelling at him, ‘I tell you every time not to eat the shrimp!’”

  Lucy looped her arm through mine and pulled my ear toward her mouth. “Sometimes Sue and Kori fight, too,” she confided.

  We carried the bag of gifts to a table where Sue and Kori had already set out the pies. A gold menorah sat at
one end, and a long, wooden block with green, red, and black candles was at the other. Seven words were carved into the wood: Umoja, Kujichagulia, Ujima, Ujamaa, Nia, Kuumba, and Imani.

  Kendra came up next to me, holding a tray of tiny paper cups. “That’s for Kwanzaa. They mean unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity, and faith.”

  “I like that.”

  “Yeah, so did my mother. Shame she didn’t live by it.”

  She moved on with her tray of cups. An old man fell asleep in his wheelchair and spilled cider all over his pants. A lady knelt next to him and cleaned it up. “Oh, Dad,” she said, then she dabbed a tissue where a smidgen of drool peeked from the corner of his mouth.

  Sue waved me over when the pies were cut up. “Take two, pass them out, and come back for more.”

  “Who gets what kind?”

  “Don’t worry. They’ll tell you exactly which one they want.”

  I took a slice of pecan and a slice of blueberry with me. The first man peered at them suspiciously and waved me away. “Come back when you’ve got mincemeat,” he said.

  A white-haired woman in a fuzzy blue bathrobe held both hands out. Her skin was thin as rice paper, see-through with brown spots.

  “Thank you, lovey,” she said. “I’ll take two.”

  I looked back at Sue to be sure that was okay, but she didn’t see me. The lady tugged on my shirt.

  “Honey, I’m ninety-six years old,” she said. “I served our country in two wars. I’ve earned a dozen pieces if I want them.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” I gave her both and whispered, “Want me to find you some whipped cream?”

  She smiled, but already had blueberry pie in her mouth and couldn’t answer. I went back to the table and got a piece of the mincemeat for the man.

  After everyone had pie and sparkling cider, a lady with Director on her badge moved to the middle of the room and clapped her hands to get everyone’s attention. She had on the ugliest Christmas sweater I’d ever seen. It looked homemade, like someone had used up every drab color yarn they could find to knit it for her. Even worse, little pieces of sequins spelled out Merry Merry across the chest, and it was too short. Every time she raised her arms, the sweater inched above the waist of her stretch pants. Biz and Lucy could hardly contain their giggles.