by Robert Dalby
Henry stood up and embraced Gaylie Girl and Renza in turn. “You bet I will. I’d be more than proud to have all you ladies as my sweet aunties for as long as you want me.”
“Your sweet Vigil Aunties,” Gaylie Girl reminded him, pulling back to hold him at arm’s length. “God, how I do love being a Nitwitt! And, of course, I’ll be taking the first watch this evening.” She reached over and grabbed Mr. Choppy by the sleeve. “Come on, Hale, let’s hurry home so I can whip up one of Gladys Dunbar’s best recipes for Henry.”
Gaylie Girl was amazed. No woman who had just endured an emergency C-section should be looking the way Cherish Hempstead looked. Propped up on several pillows, her long, blond hair falling to her shoulders, she was nothing short of a smiling angelic vision nestled in a hospital bed.
“It was so good of you to visit me, Miz Dunbar,” Cherish was saying as Gaylie Girl moved to her side to hold her hand. Henry stood on the other side, gazing down at his wife adoringly. “Henry’s told me all about your latest little Nitwitt project. It takes a load off my mind to know that you ladies will be takin’ care of him until I get back on my feet. Which I trust will be very soon. They tell me all my vital signs are pretty much normal considerin’ what I’ve just been through.”
She pointed to the screens beside the bed keeping digital tabs on her. “That little incision they made in my belly just needs to heal up, and they say I’m home free. I’ve been assured there won’t be much of a scar.” But her mood and expression suddenly darkened. “Our little Riley Jacob is another matter, though. I’ve haven’t even been able to see him yet because they don’t dare take him out of that neonatal intensive care unit. I don’t know why it is, but I seem to have had all sorts of trouble bringin’ new life into the world. I wonder if somebody’s tryin’ to tell me somethin’.”
Gaylie Girl gave her hand a brief but firm squeeze. “Don’t you even think that way. Maybe we’re not meant to be able to figure out everything that happens to us. That way we try harder and take things seriously. I had two C-sections with both my children, and back then, they cut you up pretty good to get the baby out, compared to the way they did it with you today. But from the very beginning I always felt my scars were worth it. Oh, yes, I missed the old figure and the way all my clothes used to fit me so well, but the important thing was I had my son and daughter in place by my side. The rest was now going to be up to me and my husband, Peter. So you and Henry just concentrate on how you’re going to raise little Riley Jacob, and it will all fall into place.”
“You and Mr. Dunbar have just been so nice to both of us,” Cherish replied, her spirits clearly lifted by Gaylie Girl’s subtle cheerleading. “You’ve been almost like parents, since both ours are gone, you know.”
“And what your son’s done for me, Miz Dunbar!” Henry added. “Givin’ me the next four days off with pay is really goin’ the extra mile. We’ve got our expenses comin’ up with what the insurance doesn’t cover.”
“It was Petey’s pleasure,” Gaylie Girl explained. “He told me from the beginning that he wanted to provide incentives for his key employees to produce the kind of leadership it takes to keep a company running successfully.” Then she reached into her coat pocket and drew out a piece of paper, handing it over to Cherish. “I wanted you and Henry to have a copy of this so you’d know exactly what to expect over the next few days. I’ve written out the schedule of all your Vigil Aunties. It’s not twenty-four hours a day, you understand, but I think it will help at this critical time.”
Cherish smiled brightly and began scanning it silently, but Henry requested that she read it out loud. So she started all over. “Sunday evenin’—6 to 9—Gaylie Girl Dunbar.” She stopped to acknowledge Gaylie Girl’s presence with a nod of her head. “And here you are. Then we have Monday mornin’—8 to 11—Laurie Hampton. Monday afternoon—1 to 4—Renza Belford. Monday evenin’—6 to 9—Novie Mims.” Cherish worked her way through the rest of the Aunties and their schedules with a discernible awe in her voice. “I can’t believe you’re all doin’ this for us. You Nitwitts really are the true spirit of Second Creek, what with your Caroling in The Square on Christmas Eve comin’ up this weekend, too. I’ve been lookin’ forward to it so, but I prob’ly won’t be allowed out to see it now.”
“There’ll be another one next year to go to,” Henry pointed out. “Assumin’ this first one’ll be the big success everyone thinks it’ll be.”
Gaylie Girl’s laugh was prolonged and thoroughly cavalier. It was clear that she felt she was at the top of her game. “I don’t see how it can help but be. Our choirs have been polishing up their selections every day and are just champing at the bit. We’re even going to have Lady Roth spotlighted on the widow’s walk of the courthouse roof and dressed up as the Star of Bethlehem. Won’t that be a sight to see?”
Henry leaned in and gave his wife a peck on the cheek. “Don’t worry. I’ll take pictures for you, honey. Especially some of Lady Roth up there. I remember how much you enjoyed her as Susan B. Anthony during the election campaign.”
Cherish cocked her head, apparently reviewing those arresting, once-in-a-lifetime images and performances. “If Mr. Dunbar hadn’t been runnin’, I might’ve voted for her she was so convincin’. And now she’ll stand as a symbol for all who travel far and wide to Second Creek at Christmastime. She must be beside herself.”
“I often think that very thing about her,” Gaylie Girl added, not bothering to elaborate. “But no matter. Let’s just assume everything will go our way—from the choirs singing on the balconies to Lady Roth shining on the roof to your little Riley Jacob coming home soon. What a wonderful Christmas present all of that will be for us!”
Ten
A Wailing of Sirens, a Gnashing of Teeth
Gaylie Girl realized she was in the midst of a dream, but she was nonetheless being royally entertained. As so often happens in such cases, the plot of her unconscious drama made sense one second and morphed into utter nonsense the next. Time and place had been deliriously jumbled, and people no longer alive popped in and out of the mise-en-scène at a moment’s notice. But it was all being staged in vivid color and was holding her attention every bit as effectively as a much-acclaimed movie in a first-run theater.
First, there had been that sequence in the manse at Lake Forest. She was seated at the grand piano in the drawing room, only there was a metronome beside her on the bench, ticking away noisily.
“See? I can play now,” she was telling her late husband, Peter Lyons, who was standing over her. There was the sense that he was eagerly anticipating her newly found skills. And then she began playing but could produce nothing more than a cacophonous din. As it turned out, she was literally banging on the keys with her fists, and he had started laughing.
“I thought you said you could play,” Peter Lyons had told her then. “You mean I came back to listen to this?”
“You shouldn’t have left Petey and Amanda all that money when you died!” she replied, flashing on him. “It’s only gotten them into trouble and spoiled them rotten. Why else do you think I’m banging on this piano? It’s the only way I could get your attention!”
Whereupon the scene instantly shifted to Second Creek. She found herself atop the courthouse on the widow’s walk, helping Lady Roth arrange her elaborate Star of Bethlehem costume. The wind was blowing fiercely around them, and she kept getting caught up in the voluminous folds of the dress. They were sticky to boot, akin to the threads of a spiderweb, and she felt trapped.
“Hurry up, it’s almost time for my solo!” Lady Roth was shouting.
And that was when Gaylie Girl was overcome with a sensation of defeat. Despite everyone’s herculean efforts to prevent it from happening, Lady Roth began singing to the crowd that had gathered in The Square below.
Perhaps singing was too kind a word to use. It seemed to Gaylie Girl that it was more like screeching—even a coloratura gone mad with a high-pitched wail that could have shattered glass. Not only that, it a
ppeared that Lady Roth had disdained a traditional Christmas carol for an unidentifiable rock-and-roll ditty.
“Myrtis Troy gave me the sheet music. It was from her husband’s old record shop!” Lady Roth continued.
It was then that the lighter, more humorous tone of the dream instantly disappeared, replaced by a sense of something unexpected and menacing. Something foreboding that seemed to be lurking around The Square—as yet unseen but frighteningly felt and inevitable . . .
The bedside phone rang in the physical flesh and blood world, jarring Gaylie Girl to wakefulness. It was Mr. Choppy who answered it, however. But not before clicking on the lamp and groaning quite audibly when he glanced at the neon-blue numbers on the digital clock. 2:33, it read.
It blinked to 2:34 even as he was reading it.
“Who the hell is callin’ me up this time a’ night? There’s no way this can be good news!”
He briefly fumbled with the cordless phone, removing it from its stand and putting it to his ear. All the way over on her side of the bed, Gaylie Girl could clearly hear the loud and agitated voice as well as high-pitched background noises emanating from the other end. Suddenly, the bad feeling that had crept into the last scene of her dream began to grip her as she sat bolt upright and said the first thing that popped into her head.
“Please don’t tell me that’s Henry Hempstead calling from the hospital!”
Mr. Choppy shook his head emphatically while continuing to listen intently to his caller. But soon enough he put an end to the conversation with a hurried “I’ll be down there as soon as I can get dressed! Save what you can!” Then he ripped the covers off his side of the bed and headed for his closet across the room.
“I know something horrible has just happened,” Gaylie Girl said. “I even have the creepiest sensation that I was about to dream just exactly what it was when the phone rang.”
The brief sentence Mr. Choppy uttered seemed to register in the marrow of Gaylie Girl’s bones as well as the adrenalin shooting through her veins: “The Square’s caught on fire!”
Gaylie Girl closed her eyes and shuddered, trying to completely crowd out of her mind what he had just told her. But all she had to show for her efforts was a strange little whimper, followed by further confusion. “I’m not even sure what day this is supposed to be. But I know I went to bed early when I got back from my first Vigil Auntie shift at the hospital. Is it Monday?”
“Yes, and that was Garvin Braswell, my fire chief. He says the fire’s gotten outta hand quickly since all those buildings are smack dab right up against each other, as you know,” Mr. Choppy continued while stepping into his pants. “That’s the downside to buildin’ rows like that. If one burns, the others frequently do, too. There’s just no wiggle room.”
Gaylie Girl was trying her best to visualize it. “Are all four sides burning?”
“Just the north side for now, but Garvin says it’s spreadin’ west. They’ve got all the brigades in the county either down there or on the way. I could hear some of the sirens as we talked.” Mr. Choppy was throwing on his heavy coat now.
“The north side is where Petey and Meta’s building is!” Gaylie Girl suddenly exclaimed.
“Yes, it is, as I recollect.”
“Shouldn’t I let Petey know?”
“You can, but whatever you do, tell him not to go down there right now. It’s dangerous, and there’s nothin’ he can do but get in the way. Garvin says there are already enough gawkers as it is, even though the whole area’s been cordoned off. Damned rubberneckers! He says no deaths so far, thank God, but someone could end up gettin’ killed that way!” He grabbed his car keys from the nightstand and stuffed them into his coat pocket, then momentarily froze in place. “Meta hasn’t moved any of her artwork into their buildin’ yet, has she? There’s nothin’ to save, right?”
“That’s right. Renza says she went down to St. Augustine this week to close the gallery and make arrangements to have everything shipped up here. She was bound and determined to have an opening of some sort for Caroling in The Square even though they still haven’t completely finished with all the wiring.” Gaylie Girl’s sigh of relief summed it up perfectly. “At least there’s that to be thankful for.”
Mr. Choppy quickly moved around the bed and gave her a parting kiss. “I’m sure I don’t have to tell you to stay right here. Don’t you even think about venturin’ out. I’ll give you a call on my cell when it’s finally under control.” He produced one last caveat.
“Oh, and tell all your Nitwitt ladies to stay put, too. Because I know you’ll wake every one of ’em up and get your little network goin’ into the wee hours. No, scratch that. We’re already in the wee hours. You ladies’ll be at it until the crack a’ dawn.”
Gaylie Girl met his somewhat patronizing monologue with a light touch. “You do see that I have to, don’t you? They’d revoke my Nitwitt membership if I didn’t call. Renza will want to know because of the gallery, and Novie will want to know because of Marc and Michael’s plant boutique, and as for Euterpe—”
Mr. Choppy interrupted, though he made a point of softening his tone this time. “Miz Renza could stand to be kept in the dark for a few hours every once in a while. And How’s Plants? is on the other side of The Square away from the fire. So far it’s not bein’ threatened. And if you’re gonna bring Euterpe’s studio into this, my old Piggly Wiggly hasn’t moved since I leased it to her. It’s still one block off The Square on the east side. Just make sure none of you goes down there on a lark. I want y’all safe and sound, and I don’t wanna read about any of you in the Citizen obits tomorrow. The news’ll be bad enough as it is.”
For some reason she decided to give him a playful salute and that brought the briefest of smiles to their faces. “Yes, Mayor Dunbar,” she added with a wink.
He leaned down and gave her another quick kiss for good measure. “All we can do is hope for the best, but it sure sounds like our beloved Second Creek is takin’ a big hit tonight.”
She grabbed the sleeve of his coat almost as a reflex action. “You be careful, too, while you’re down there, sir.”
“Will do, First Lady, will do.”
With that, he was out the door and on his way.
The last time Mr. Choppy had been so mesmerized by a fire was in the darkened balcony of the Grand Theater during the very first Second Creek screening of Gone with the Wind. The lengthy “Burning of Atlanta” sequence had been so ablaze with eye-searing oranges and yellows that the movie rat extraordinaire and part-time Piggly Wiggly stock clerk in training had been forced to turn away from the screen now and then to get some relief. Though he had no trouble grasping the fact that the massive conflagration was only a clever and spectacular Hollywood trick, it had nevertheless traumatized his eleven-year-old brain. He had endured nights of fitful sleep in the weeks that followed, offering up his childlike prayers that nothing and no one he loved or admired would ever be destroyed by such a voracious catastrophe.
And yet here it was happening to the very heart of his beloved Second Creek—the only home he had ever known and now the one he lovingly shepherded from the Mayor’s office. By the time Mr. Choppy had reached The Square and begun huddling with Garvin Braswell behind the lines—both men yelling over all the noise and mayhem just to be heard—the entire block of Courthouse Street North had been engulfed. Half of Courthouse Street West was well on its way to the same fate. The hoses of three different trucks were taking dead aim at the ravenous flames rising high into the cold December sky, but the fire seemed to have taken on a life of its own, lapping up the incoming streams of pressurized water like some unquenchable demon.
“The north side is a goner, but at least we’ve stopped it from spreadin’ east!” Garvin Braswell shouted, producing visible bursts of frosty breath. “It’s gonna be touch and go how far down the west side she goes now!” The ordinarily implacable fire chief, who boasted a quarter-century of firefighting experience, took a moment to crane his neck, squint his eye
s, and shake his head. “This might be the worst I’ve ever seen, Mr. Dunbar! This one’s gonna take a while to snuff!” Then he was back to barking orders at his charges as they struggled mightily to save buildings that would more than likely be standing in ruin before the sun came up.
Mr. Choppy just couldn’t take it all in. It was one thing to have stores fail and remain sadly vacant due to competition from chains like the MegaMart and the newest Bypass shopping centers full of their slick neon look-alikes. There was always the hope that some enterprising businessman or -woman might step into the historical vacuum and give The Square the old small-business try. Marc Mims and Michael Peeler had been the latest to give good account of themselves in doing just that.
It was even possible to gut it up and block out the deplorable zoning practices of the previous Hammontree administration. Possible but not easy, considering that Mr. Floyce had bent the rules to the breaking point and fattened his own coffers even as that doomed irreplaceable landmarks to extinction.
But this disheartening destruction of what had always been an integral part of what made Second Creek a special place to live in and visit was more than Mr. Choppy could bear. He didn’t see how things could ever be the same again. Even if the various brigades—working together as hard as they possibly could—succeeded in preventing further damage by halting the fire right this very moment, there would still be no way that the integrity of The Square would not be seriously compromised.
And all this just a few days out from Christmas and the original initiative his Gaylie Girl had taken to leave her mark on Second Creek and bring people together at the same time. He knew in the pit of his stomach that it was now as simple as this: her Caroling in The Square on Christmas Eve had just gone up in flames. Would there be anything left of Christmas for Second Creekers?