Home Is Where My People Are: The Roads That Lead Us to Where We Belong

by Sophie Hudson

  There are train stations in major metropolitan areas that are more peaceful.

  Paige and I didn’t care so much, though. We had a couple of twin bed frames—on rollers, no less—and if we got in or out of our beds too quickly, those metal frames would screech across the tile floor and set our teeth on edge, so naturally we’d laugh until we cried. If Kerri decided at two in the morning that she needed a big glass of ice water, we’d wake up to the sounds of her emptying the ice tray and turning on the faucet. Then we’d laugh until we cried. And when Kerri would wake up at dark o’clock to fix her coffee and round up some breakfast and do whatever young entrepreneurs do in the predawn hours, Paige and I would roll over in our respective twin beds, pray the frames didn’t scrape the tile, look at each other over our covers, and laugh until we cried.

  It was a good thing that just about everything struck us as funny at that stage of our lives. And also that we didn’t have a whole lot of needs when it came to our privacy.

  After our first few days in Atlanta, Paige and I both started to understand the lay of the land in terms of our day-to-day responsibilities. Paige worked mainly as an assistant to Sister; they figured out the details for all the upcoming events and worked to make those things happen. I worked mainly as an assistant to Kerri; we wrote letters and designed brochures to secure new business, and I was also supposed to answer the phone and handle all the word processing stuff.

  So by nine o’clock every morning, Paige was typically on the sunporch with Sister, and I was in the office off the living room, making my way through Kerri’s to-do list. It was my first experience with “working from home,” so to speak, and like any good eighteen-year-old, I took great pleasure in sleeping until 8:55 and then stumbling into the office in my pajamas. It honestly never occurred to me that I might be more effective and efficient if I would, oh, shower; I mainly just took great pleasure and pride in knowing that working from Kerri’s house afforded Paige and me the opportunity to enjoy employment in a modified version of a “no shoes, no shirt, no problem” environment.

  And when I’d answer the day’s first calls with “Good morning, thank you for calling McMahon Lee Designs,” I got a kick out of knowing that the caller had absolutely no idea the Mississippi drawl on the other end of the phone was probably wearing either a Mickey Mouse hospital-style nightgown or a bright-yellow T-shirt dress that had been embellished with puff paint.

  I believe the word that you’re looking for is professional.

  Paige and I had been in Atlanta about two weeks when several business-related details became crystal clear to us. First of all, Kerri liked everything about being a businesswoman. She liked the suits, she liked the lingo, she liked the travel. She dreamed big, talked big, and treated me like a full-fledged assistant. I found this last development all sorts of remarkable, considering I favored pajamas as my preferred work attire.

  The second thing we learned was that Sister is the kind of boss everybody wants. She’s just the right mix of efficient, fun, and driven—and I’d say that even if we weren’t siblings. She and Paige had an absolute blast figuring out the details of different events, building props, contacting vendors, ordering decorations, and planning menus. They’re both strangely detail oriented for creative people, and even at eighteen, I marveled at how much fun they had figuring out how to bring the vision for a particular party to life. This was quite the epiphany for me considering I’ve always viewed details as my sworn enemy.

  The third thing we learned was that I am not a person who enjoys the business world.

  If you’ll just go back and reread the first paragraph in this little section, you’ll be able to more fully appreciate my dilemma.

  I mean, there I was. Eighteen years old. Living rent free in a charming, fun house in the center of Atlanta. I liked answering the phone and working on the computer because, well, I’ve always enjoyed buttons, but every morning, when Kerri would sit down with me and go over the plan for the day—using words like strategy and return on investment and collateral and marketing plan—I’d find myself zoning out and singing Rick Astley lyrics in my head. There was even one day when Kerri set up a meeting between the accountant and me—so the accountant could tell me which bookkeeping tasks I’d be responsible for doing—and about ten minutes into the meeting, I had to excuse myself so I could go to the bathroom and cry. I didn’t want to be a baby at all; in fact, I was usually stubborn enough to pretend like I knew what was going on (especially when I didn’t) and then figure it out later. But being responsible for even a tiny bit of bookkeeping was so far outside my natural skill set that all I could feel was overwhelmed.

  After all, as a wise philosopher once said, “Math ruins everything.”

  I totally made that up, by the way. And it’s probably true only if you’re an English major.

  But guess what? I was an English major.

  So there.

  Not too long after the meeting with the accountant, Sister and Barry invited Paige and me out for Friday-night dinner at a local Mexican place called El Toro.

  (I’m certainly not trying to brag, but I happen to know that el toro means “the bull.”)

  (Also, queso means “cheese.”)

  (Be sure to see me for all your translation needs.)

  We’d been plowing through the chips and salsa for only a couple of minutes when Barry—who is so kind and genuine and considerate—said, “So. How’s everything going at work?”

  And oh, bless his heart. He had no idea that he was going to get to play therapist for the rest of the night. An accountant by trade, Barry not only likes numbers, he’s also really good with them. So when I tried to explain my frustrations with the NUMBERS and the SALES and the FIGURES—and when I told him I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was not cut out for the business world, he asked what might make the situation better.

  “Well,” I replied, as I dug into my bean nachos, “I’ve thought about it a lot, and it seems like the very best thing would be if I just went home.”

  That wasn’t the answer Barry expected.

  “Mississippi home?” he asked.

  “Oh, yeah. ALL THE WAY to Mississippi home.”

  Sister looked surprised, but she didn’t say much. I knew she wouldn’t try to persuade me to stay if I was really that miserable, but I also knew that she wouldn’t want to see me go.

  After supper that night I went back to Kerri’s house and wrote Mama and Daddy a long, heartfelt letter. I don’t remember my exact words, but I do know that my final sentence was something along these lines: “All this ‘real world’ stuff is a lot harder than I imagined, and it is stressing me out.”

  We’ll ignore the fact that I was working for a company owned in part by my sister, so TOUGHEN UP, SHIRLEY. And we’ll also ignore the part about how I wasn’t having to pay any rent or utilities or insurance.

  But still. I was having to deal with a LOT of numbers, y’all.

  My life was very difficult.

  Considering that I grew up in a town that was less than an hour’s drive from a bevy of aunts, uncles, and cousins, spending time with family was never a choice for me. It was just my reality. It was of little to no consequence if I actually liked being with them, and now that I think about it, I can’t recall a single instance when Mama or Daddy asked my opinion about whether or not I wanted to hang out with relatives on a Sunday afternoon. It was just what we did—like it or lump it—and throughout our childhoods, Paige and I found ourselves in situation after situation where we had to entertain ourselves and make the best of it, regardless of how much we enjoyed the great-aunt we happened to be visiting that day.

  Paige and I were born two and a half years apart, and even though that feels like a blip on the age radar now that we’re both in our forties, we might as well have been decades apart when we were little. Even still, countless sleepovers and family functions and church services had taught us that we could laugh our way through just about anything; we learned early on that age is pr
actically irrelevant when it comes to matters of the funny bone.

  Our history of laughing at, well, everything ended up serving Paige and me mighty well in Atlanta. In fact, a big part of why I decided to stay in Atlanta and not hightail it back to Mississippi was that the prospect of spending the rest of the summer with Paige and Sister was too good to pass up. Not even bank statements and THE MANY NUMBERS could deter me. Plus, Kerri had a lot of travel lined up in June, and she told me that I could drive her Volvo while she was out of town, so SOLD.

  Kerri’s work trips always seemed to usher in some sort of craziness at the house. The first time she left, Paige and I had our first encounter with Kerri’s housekeeper, Georgie, who worked every other Monday morning. Georgie was a precious, servant-hearted woman who never missed an opportunity to share an encouraging word. When she’d see me typing on the computer, she’d say, “Well, you sure are mighty smart on that machine, aren’t you?” It was several weeks later when I realized that Georgie thought I was programming the computer instead of just typing documents, but I appreciated her sweet words nonetheless. When she’d see Paige building a backdrop for an upcoming event, she’d pause and say, “Well, I’ll be doggone if you aren’t the hardest worker there ever was.”

  Since she typically arrived at Kerri’s house early in the morning, Georgie liked to bring her breakfast with her and eat as she worked. Paige and I noticed that Georgie was like our Papaw Davis in that some of her favorite breakfast fare included delicacies like Vienna sausage, potted meat, and plenty of hot sauce to accompany her toast and scrambled eggs. In some parts of the South, that’s what’s known as a good country breakfast. However, that good country breakfast was not exactly compatible with Georgie’s digestive system.

  And around nine in the morning, when I’d see Paige’s shoulders shake as she pulled her shirt over her nose and moved to another room, I’d know that those Vienna sausages had started to exact their revenge. Paige and I would spend the next couple of hours giving each other nonverbal cues when it was time to CLEAR THE ROOM—sometimes going so far as to open a door or a window under the guise of letting in a little fresh air. We wouldn’t have offended Georgie for anything in the world—she was so warm and loving and welcoming to us—but there was no changing the fact that between nine and ten in the morning, she’d consistently leave a mighty stout cloud in her wake. So we tried to handle the situation as best we knew how. Short of offering Georgie some Gas-X, of course.

  And since we didn’t feel like we knew her well enough to offer remedies for her, you know, situation, we held tight to family tradition and let the laughter get us on through.

  Let the laughter get us on through.

  I’m totally going to cross-stitch that somewhere.

  Since event planning was the whole purpose of Sister and Kerri’s company, we spent more than our fair share of nights at corporate dinners and receptions and other business tomfoolery. It’s probably no secret that I preferred nights at home with some El Toro takeout and a rerun of Moonlighting, but since Kerri was on the road a lot, Sister, Paige, and I became a pretty good setup and takedown crew. It seemed like most of the groups that hired Sister and Kerri wanted to host at least one Southern-themed night during their convention or general meeting or whatever they were having, so Sister and Paige would run by the wholesale florist, purchase what amounted to a van full of flowers, and then artfully display their arrangements in the middle of as many plantation shutters and ferns and stately columns as one conference room could bear.

  I’ve never been much for floral design, so I earned my keep by hauling around boxes and props. While Sister and Paige worked their magic, a caterer would make sure there were plenty of hors d’oeuvres and drinks on hand—preferably some combination involving boiled shrimp, fried catfish, and mint juleps. I personally have lived in the South my whole life without ever sampling a mint julep, but visitors seem to feel it’s a rite of passage in these parts. When in Rome, I reckon.

  After several weeks, all those smaller parties started to feel pretty routine—almost like a series of dress rehearsals for a big event that was coming up at the end of the summer. A pharmaceutical company was hosting a party for several hundred people at Waverly Hill, a horse farm right outside of town, and it was going to be an all-hands-on-deck event. Sister and Kerri had both worked tirelessly for a couple of months in hopes that everything would go off without a hitch, and Paige and I each had a checklist of what we needed to do before the big night. I may have even kept my checklist in my Day-Timer just so I’d look official and business-y when I picked up chicken biscuits from Mrs. Winner’s in Kerri’s Volvo.

  It didn’t matter where I lived, y’all. I was eighteen, and I was forever determined to hunt down the very best fried chicken option and embrace it with my whole heart.

  About ten days before the Waverly Hill extravaganza, Kerri had to fly out of town for some meetings. She’d taken the aforementioned Volvo (aka My Baby) to the dealership for service, and she realized about three hours before her flight left that she really needed to take her own car to the airport. If I could remember the reasons for all this, I would tell you, but all I can recall was that there was a lot of urgency and scrambling and a series of events that resulted in my handing her my keys.

  So the plan was that Kerri would drive my Buick Regal to the Volvo dealership, leave my keys under the driver’s seat mat (Dear Atlanta, you were much more trustworthy back in 1988. Love, Me.), pick up her car, and head to the airport. Then, after work, Sister and Paige—who had been running errands all over town for most of the day—would drive me out to the Volvo place, where I would retrieve the Regal and drive it back to Kerri’s house.

  Well.

  When we got to the dealership, we couldn’t find my car anywhere. Kerri said she’d left it in front of the main office, but there was no maroon Buick with Mississippi plates within our line of sight. We figured Kerri must have forgotten some critical detail since she was in such a rush to get to the airport, so I told Sister and Paige that I’d run inside and ask the man at the front desk if he knew anything about it.

  The man at the front desk had no knowledge of my car at all, so he called some people and paged some people and talked to some people, and after about five minutes, he called me up to the desk. He had a huge smile on his face, so I figured the news must be good.

  “Well, young lady, we’ve located your car,” he said.

  “OH, GOOD!” I replied—no doubt with my best sorority girl enthusiasm. “Where is it?”

  “At the impound lot,” he answered.

  “At the what?” I asked, incredulous.

  “At the impound lot. It was parked in a loading zone, so we had it towed. Sorry ’bout that. But you’ll need to hurry if you want to get it tonight; the lot closes in about twenty minutes, and it’s a good ways up the road.”

  At that point in my life I was unfamiliar with the whole concept of an impound lot. Come to think of it, I don’t believe I’ve had any experience with an impound lot since that sweltering summer day in Fulton County, Georgia. But oh, did I ever get an education within the next half hour. For example, I learned that impound lots don’t care if it’s not your fault that your boss left your car in a loading zone.

  I also learned that impound lots don’t accept out-of-state checks from eighteen-year-olds.

  Who knows? Maybe the majority of college freshmen enjoy heftier bank accounts than I did back in the day. But it was going to be almost $200 to get my car out of the lot, and at that stage of my life, that was an amount that I liked to refer to as ALL MY MONEY FOR THE MONTH.

  Thankfully Sister and Barry covered my expenses at the impound lot, and of course Kerri repaid them. (She was mortified but utterly tickled when I called her later that night and said, “KERRI. THEY TOWED MY CAR” with all the heartfelt angst of Molly Ringwald in the prom scene of a John Hughes movie.) Sister and Paige didn’t stop laughing for about four days.

  Once my car was back in my possession, t
he pre–Waverly Hill preparations should have been easy breezy from that point forward. Paige and I were so confident, in fact, that we decided to pull the phone outside one day and do our work beside Kerri’s pool. Sister was meeting with vendors and Kerri was still out of town, so we had more flexibility than we normally enjoyed during a workday.

  Really, it wasn’t that crazy of an idea if you think about it. These days, people work from all sorts of random locations. Cell phones enable folks to conference call or FaceTime from coffee shops, for heaven’s sake. So pulling a two-line business phone to the edge of a patio couldn’t have been a big deal, right?

  Honestly, it’s almost like we were ahead of our time.

  Kerri’s pool was another project that her late husband never finished. They installed a pool and a beautiful flagstone patio in the back of the house, but some of the trim work and landscaping features were still missing. When Paige and I first arrived in Atlanta, the water was such a distinct shade of green that you couldn’t have paid either of us to stick our toes in the shallow end. You could just barely see the bottom of the pool, and it made me shudder just to think about what might live in that thar cement pond, as Elly May Clampett might say.

  Over the course of the summer, though, Kerri had hired a pool service. There was a gorgeous view of the pool area from every room on the back of the house, and it seemed like a good idea to let someone get the pool situation under control before major repairs were required. After three or four visits, the pool service had the pool in tip-top shape, and the day Paige and I planned to work outside was going to be our inaugural dip in those waters, so to speak.