Secrets of Southern Girls

by Haley Harrigan

  “Thanks for the cookies,” I said, picking up the plate and heading to my room with Jules following behind.

  Jules and I sat cross-legged on my bedroom floor, the soft carpet fibers rubbing against my legs in that way that is both scratchy and soothing. The room is covered in white, with pearly-white walls and puffy, white cotton-ball pillows on my white eyelet bedspread. It’s too girlie, and I dream of a room painted the color of the ocean. The white was Mama’s doing; this was her idea of what having a daughter would be like. It’s probably not worth the effort (or the argument with Mama that would surely come) to change it all, anyway.

  “Finally, the meeting,” I said. “Maybe now we’ll stop hearing him go on and on about the damned promotion.” I slid a CD into the stereo, and Fiona Apple’s velvety voice sang to us. Mama would lose her mind if she knew I owned this CD—so sensual. “Slow Like Honey” played through the speakers. I moved my lips, without sound, to the words of the song.

  “Tell me about your date,” I said.

  Jules was quiet for a moment, mentally editing the story for my ears, I’m sure. “It was with the boy I met on the Fourth of July, at the fireworks. Do you remember?”

  “Which one?” I laughed.

  “Jake. He’s our age. Goes to Woodbrooke.”

  “Well, what’s he like? What did you talk about? Where did you go?”

  But I could guess the answer. They went to the park, I bet. I imagined the wet heat of Jules’s mouth pressed against her date’s as she straddled him in his car, under the moon, in the middle of the night.

  “He’s…nice,” Jules said. When I raised an eyebrow, she elaborated. “Boring, kind of. He only wants to talk about school. He wants to be a doctor. And he was annoyingly afraid of getting caught, kept talking about his friend so-and-so who was nearly arrested when the cops found him at the park with his girlfriend a few months before. He’s nice to look at, though—dark hair and eyes and a great smile. He plays football.”

  “Hmm…good kisser?” I teased.

  “Yes,” Jules admitted. “That part wasn’t as boring as the rest.”

  I’m not allowed to date. But, technically, neither is Jules. It’s just that there’s no one around to stop her.

  The slamming of the front door made us both jump. I can’t help but tense up when my daddy comes home. Like I’m doing something wrong, even though the worst I could be accused of then was listening to improper music.

  Jules is as used to my daddy by now as I am: his size (tall, wide), his booming voice, his cheeks, red-tinted and mottled as though he’s just finished running a mile or two. But that day he was louder than normal, letting out a yell that seemed to shake the house. Even Jules sat up straighter.

  We started to hear other things—cabinets slamming or maybe a fist crashing down on a table. “Uh-oh,” I said.

  We couldn’t hear what he was going on about. His normal “Hello, ladies!” was certainly missing, but the sound of his voice wasn’t getting closer to my room, which meant, at least, that whatever had gotten him all worked up, it wasn’t us.

  It didn’t take long for it to click. “Oh no,” I whispered. “The promotion.” Curious and terrified as I’ve always been when Daddy is angry, I eased open my bedroom door and tiptoed into the hallway. We crept along past the wood-framed photos lining the walls, family portraits of Mama and Daddy and me in dress clothes, smiling stupid forced smiles. At the end of the hallway, we could see my parents in the kitchen. Daddy stomped back and forth across the room, rattling the place settings on the dining table.

  “I can’t believe it! My job! My job!”

  “Harold, calm down,” Mama said, her voice quavering as she smoothed her hair. “The girls are home.”

  Daddy’s hands were clenched, white and visible against his otherwise red body. “How could this happen?”

  “I don’t know,” Mama said, looking down and shaking her head. “Harold, I don’t understand.” Instead of going to him, she shrank against the wall, as though she could disappear into the country-themed kitchen wallpaper.

  “That was my promotion! Everyone knew it! Everyone knew it belonged to me, damn it! Every day for twenty-five years, Libby, twenty-five years I have gone to work every day at that dirty, smelly, blistering-hot hell, and all for nothing! Nothing!”

  Jules looked at me, and I nodded. Definitely the promotion, then. The fury on his face made me feel light-headed and panicky, but I couldn’t turn away from it.

  “I’ll quit! That’s what I’ll do!” he shouted, hurling a set of perfectly wrapped silverware across the room. We flinched, and so did Mama, as spoon, fork, and knife crashed against the wall and clattered noisily to the floor. “Enough! I’ve had enough! And the worst part, Libby? Oh hell, I haven’t even gotten to the worst part! Libby, do you know who took my job? Do you know?”

  Mama shook her head again, silent.

  Impossibly, my daddy’s face turned an even deeper shade of red, making him look like a demon when he opened his mouth and let out a trembling roar. “A nigger, Libby!”

  I could hear Jules gasp. Oh no. Here we go again.

  Three months ago, before the end of school, a white girl, Penny Decker, was caught under the bleachers with James Edgemont, a black boy. Everyone knew they were dating, and that was scandal enough throughout the school, especially among the teachers. But when the principal caught them together half-naked and told Penny’s parents, they insisted it was rape, and James was arrested. Penny didn’t say he forced her, but she didn’t say they were a couple, either. She got scared and didn’t say anything at all.

  The KKK held a protest right outside the high school. I guess I was the only one naive enough to be surprised that the KKK existed in Lawrence Mill in 1997. They wore awful white robes, carried signs, and accepted donations. The Jackson Channel 12 news crew was out with their cameras and caught the whole humiliating scene. A prominent civil rights lawyer from Massachusetts got wind of it and came to town to take on the case. Once he got everyone talking—Penny’s friends, the teachers, even the high school janitor—it became pretty clear that what happened between the two teenagers was consensual. The charges were dropped, and James walked away with a big settlement. And Lawrence Mill’s racial divide—hard-edged and ugly and not as buried in the past as folks liked to believe—was exposed to the entire country.

  Now James is doing the talk show circuit and is practically famous (and good for him, after what he went through) and Penny Decker is a high school dropout, shunned by all of her friends and living at home with her parents in their trailer that the bank’s about to seize. Needless to say, Penny and James aren’t a couple anymore. Jules says that Penny got what she deserved, for letting James take the fall like that. I guess I never really understood what was so wrong with them being together to begin with, but enough people around here thought it was shameful.

  The racial issues have just started to die down. All this tiny town needs is something to stir them up again, and if anybody would do some stirring, it would be my daddy.

  “Oh, Harold,” Mama said. “Surely that’s not what happened.”

  “And not even one from around here! Oh no, a town nigger could never steal my job, wouldn’t have the nerve to, even if it were offered! They sent someone in—sent someone! A Yankee at that, though they act like he’s Southern enough, sent from corporate in Richmond. And those…those two-faced, backstabbing assholes in management knew it was happening. They moved him to Lawrence Mill a week ago! He starts tomorrow! I’m going to be the laughingstock of this whole goddamned town! A laughingstock! I’ve had it!”

  (He was right. I don’t know if they were laughing, but by the very next day, most of the older folks in town were talking up a storm about Daddy’s promotion going to a black man.)

  “But, Harold, why?” Mama asked. “Why didn’t the promotion go to you?”

  “How the hell sh
ould I know? Goddamn it, why does everyone expect me to understand everything? That’s what they said today when they told me about it, right before they called a company-wide meeting to introduce my new boss! ‘We’ve got to get some diversity in these upper-level positions, Harold,’” Daddy mimicked, his tone high-pitched. “‘We know you understand.’ Understand! I do not understand! I won’t have it!”

  Jules looked uneasily at me. I should go, she mouthed, gesturing to the front door. Want to come with me?

  I shook my head. It would only make things worse if Mama and Daddy went to my room later and didn’t find me there. So, while my daddy continued to shout and throw things every which way, I watched Jules slip quietly out the front door, and the overwhelming desire to escape nearly made me run right after her, no matter the consequences.

  22

  “Yep, old Harold losing the promotion had everyone talking for a while,” Nell says. In one hand she holds a short glass filled a quarter of the way with bourbon, pink fingernails pressed against transparent crystal. To Julie’s surprise, Nell had put the CLOSED sign on the door of the shop once they began catching up. Lord only knows when you’ll come my way again, she’d said.

  “He said he would be the laughingstock of the town.”

  “Well, he damn near was, for a time. You know how people are around these parts. That was juicy gossip, but only until the next thing came along. Most people had forgotten about it by the time he pulled his little stunt, got his revenge.”

  “I guess I still don’t understand it all.” Julie’s hands tremble against her will, the bourbon in her own glass shaking with the movement. “I mean, everyone must have known it was Mr. McLeod who set fire to August’s house, so why didn’t they keep him in jail?”

  Nell is quiet for a moment before she speaks again. “Well, according to the police, there wasn’t any proof. Was that true? Who knows. But with what happened to Reba right after that—well, you know, I guess people felt more sympathy for him than anything else.”

  “I didn’t,” I say, and I realize it’s true. I’d felt more pity for myself back then.

  “Well, Harold always was a mean old bastard. Never cared much for him myself.” Nell shook her head. “But losing a child can break almost anyone.”

  Julie doesn’t want to talk about Harold. It’s too late to feel sorry for him. She looks around, the vibrant colors in the shop and the familiar smells soothing after the initial shock. And Nell—so much the same that it is hard to believe any time has passed.

  “Nell, what happened to the field?”

  “Oh, honey, I sold my land five years back. It was a slow season, and the county wanted the land for a park, and I didn’t have much of a choice. So they came in and dug up the field and the little forest, and now it’s some kind of recreational park. Right after it was finished, the mill closed, and folks started leaving this town in droves, so a new community park turned out to be a pretty dumb idea. Glad I got my money when I did. I don’t go down there much, nor does anyone else. Named after the old school principal, Leonard Hobart. I hear there is a walking track there now, and a playground and a tennis court. I don’t even know who takes care of it anymore, if they do it all.” She shrugs. “What’s done is done.”

  “And the river? The bridge?”

  Nell laughs. “Well, it’d be difficult to move a river, wouldn’t it? At least with this town’s budget. Of course it’s still there. But I believe they tore out that old bridge and put something new and sturdy in its place.”

  Julie sighs. “I can’t believe the field is gone.”

  “Neither can I. But tell me about you, Jules. Tell me about your life in New York. You famous up there yet? I haven’t even gotten a Christmas card since you went away, you know. And what on earth are you doing here with August?”

  “I’m sorry, Nell,” Julie says, smiling sadly. “I guess I thought I needed to leave all of this behind.”

  Nell sets her drink down and pats Julie on the knee. “I know how it is. I’m not holding any grudges. Now, go on.”

  Julie tells Nell a short version of her life, a cold summary of her marriage and divorce. She tells her about Beck, about acting, about how she is still trying to make a name for herself in the acting world.

  “You’ve got a daughter!” Nell exclaims, her brown eyes twinkling. “Where is she? I want to meet the little devil!” Julie explains that Beck hadn’t come along. “Well, a picture then. I’ve got to see her. I bet she’s as pretty as you are.”

  “She doesn’t look a thing like me.” It comes out flat. “She looks just like her father.”

  “Show me a picture and let me see for myself,” Nell urges with a hearty laugh.

  “Hang on,” Julie says. She pulls her cell phone from her purse and displays a pixelated photo of Beck from last year with a smiling face and chubby pink cheeks.

  “My Jules with a little girl,” Nell says, shaking her head. “Gorgeous. I can’t believe it. Your own little family. Speaking of family, what about Toby? Will you see him while you’re here? He’s still around these parts, you know. Opened Opal’s first art gallery downtown, lives in a nice little loft above it. I thought he was crazy when he came up with the idea, but I guess he does well enough. Online sales are good, and those tourists that come out to Opal now on the weekends seem to like his stuff. Not my taste, though. Did you see him when he was in up in New York City for that art show?”

  Julie thinks about the flyer she received in her mailbox months back for the show, how he purposefully sent her an invite. She went alone to the gallery and was surprised and horrified to see the huge canvases leaning against the walls, Toby’s name scrawled at the bottom of each one. Elaborate, detailed paintings of wooden bridges, with small, confused faces depicted in the curves of the wood. Julie’s face. Reba’s face, fading against the dark of the splintered planks. And there was Toby, long hair pulled back, stubble on his face, dressed in torn jeans and a button-down shirt, shaking hands and accepting praise for his work, the art he’d made from tragedy. He smirked when he saw Julie, and she ran from the gallery without speaking. She hadn’t seen or heard from him since.

  She wonders why Nell seems to know—or care—so much about Toby. “No,” she says, shaking her head. “No, I didn’t see him.”

  “And August?” Nell asks. “How did you two end up here together?”

  “He sort of…found me. In New York. It’s an odd story. We’re looking for something here, actually. A diary. It belonged to Reba, and this may sound strange, but I was wondering…well, I was wondering if you know anything about it. If you have it, maybe?”

  She can’t miss the nervous expression that settles on Nell’s face, the quick side glance into the back room. “What in the world would make you think that I would have something like that?”

  Julie is caught off guard, wondering if Nell will really lie to her. Because it is clear that she knows about the diary. She used to think that Nell didn’t lie. What a naive thing to think of anyone! “I-I don’t know. Something August said made me think that you might have found it…that day. At the river.”

  Nell shakes her head. “I can’t help you, honey. I wish I could.”

  “Oh.” Julie doesn’t know what to do next, what to say. She hadn’t considered a scenario in which Nell might have the diary but would be unwilling to turn it over, that it might be right here in this shop and Julie wouldn’t be able to get her hands on it.

  “Maybe there’s something else, some other way you two could find closure,” Nell says. And Julie nods like this could be true, but she knows it isn’t.

  23

  REBA’S DIARY, 1997

  It was early August, and school hadn’t started back yet, but play practice had, and Jules was all wrapped up in it, like always. The new drama teacher was holding tryouts, even though school didn’t officially start until the next week.

  A fan of the c
lassics, Ms. Madrie had decided on Romeo and Juliet, which Jules was furious about, because she is one of the few people on the planet who hates Shakespeare. Honestly, who else hates Shakespeare? All those gorgeous words. Still, Jules was the obvious choice for the lead.

  “It’s kind of sweet, isn’t it?” I said to her, back when she first got the letter about tryouts. “And your names are so similar—Jules, Juliet. It’s like you’re meant for the role.” But Jules rolled her eyes. She isn’t one to buy into starstruck romance.

  They won’t even perform the play until January, but these things take preparation, I guess. Jules was already practicing lines at night in her bedroom mirror, watching her facial expressions as she spoke. Even though Jules hates Ms. Madrie’s choice of play, she would have been so angry if anyone else got the role.

  So, Jules was busy with tryouts, and I was at Nell’s, working alone at the counter, the next time I saw him.

  It was a Tuesday, and the shop was empty except for Nell and me. With no customers and the shop tidy, I went outside and flopped into one of the plastic chairs. I propped up my legs, tugging the long, lightweight skirt I was wearing so that instead of draping around my ankles, it pooled at my knees. Gypsy skirts, Nell calls them. I guess it’s a silly fashion choice, especially in this kind of heat. I can’t explain why I like them. My hair felt like it weighed a hundred pounds, and I held it up with both hands, using it to fan my neck.

  I knew well enough that I could have been indoors, cooling down. The air conditioner in Nell’s shop worked fine. (At least, it did then.) But there is something…exciting about this kind of Southern heat. Anything can happen. It’s what keeps us outside, Jules and me (when Jules is around), even when sweat covers our bodies like an extra layer of dewy skin.