Dolores didn’t have any deep love for the Negro race, but witnessing their ceremony seemed to soften her a little around the edges. It was hard to stay angry and brittle in the presence of such joy and beauty.
She was raised with the firm belief that was hard to shake, though, that white folks without a bank account or an education had it just as hard in life as Negroes. She did not see any advantage in being white if you were, as she was, at the bottom of the pile.
Yet Dolores had to admire the gumption of this particular group; they weren’t any different from her in one respect: All they wanted was to be left alone. They’d refused to move to McDonald’s Quarters. The Negro “renegades,” as they were sometimes called, included Priscilla Harmon—before the miracle of her going off to college—and her grandma. Robbie-Lee had mentioned once that Priscilla’s grandma worked in the fields for one of the families that grew sugarcane and watermelons. Most of those colored children did not go to school, but Priscilla had taught herself to read and write by studying an old Sears catalog and an illustrated Bible, according to Robbie-Lee. The girl was so smart that the teachers at the Negro high school enlisted the help of the town’s librarian to find her new and challenging books to read. This was how Priscilla came to know about Jackie’s book club, which met at the library. She had just finished high school and was working as a maid for mean old Mrs. Burnside. Then she let everyone down by getting pregnant, a disaster that Dolores understood only too well. White girls who were poor like Dolores were in the same boat as colored girls. All it took was one mistake and that was the end of your dreams, assuming you had any in the first place. Meanwhile, white girls who came from money simply disappeared for a while, came back home, and were allowed to act like nothing had happened. They’d been taken out of state—“gone to Georgia” was the phrase—to bide their time at a maternity home, and their babies given away to a well-to-do Protestant couple, or sometimes kinfolk.
As for the young man or boy who helped create the heartbreaking situation, he usually got off scot-free. Once in a while, some irate daddy would insist on a shotgun wedding—marry my daughter or else. But the better off the family, the more likely they were to try to hide the girl’s mistake.
Much as Dolores disliked Jackie Hart, there was a small part of her that admired her for figuring out a way to help Priscilla. But Dolores felt something else, too: a flash of envy. No one had helped her, back in her time of need and confusion.
Now she found herself in trouble again—a different set of circumstances, of course, and yet familiar in the way it made her feel. Once again, she was treated as a person who didn’t matter, who had no say. Once again, the world wanted to take what she had and give her nothing in return. She was forty-seven years old and all used up; some of it was her own fault, some wasn’t. Regardless, all she really wanted was peace. Was that so much to ask?
This is why she had to fight to protect the river. For herself and her way of life, yes, but it was more than that. This place—the ’Glades—felt eternal. In its own way, it was sacred, like the Grand Canyon, or that place in California with the giant trees.
Unfortunately, since the ’Glades featured gators, snakes, bugs, and poisonous plants, folks didn’t always recognize its beauty. Outsiders seemed to think it was a wasteland. If that was where your people were from, you got used to strangers acting like you crawled up out of the swamp yourself. You felt cursed being born there.
Only once had she heard anyone say anything nice about the ’Glades, and it had stuck with her. Her family was not churchgoers. But once, curious as a cat, she’d sneaked over and hid in the bushes near the tent revival at the Colored Adventist Church, just to have a listen. At the end of the service, the preacher gave thanks “for the ’Glades and the life that sprang from it.” This got her attention. “We sometimes don’t appreciate this here swamp,” he’d said, “and we be skeert at some of the things that live in it and around it. It ain’t an easy place to live. But thank you, Lord. The swamp be worthy because you designed it, Lord. You put the swamp here at the same time you hung the sun in the sky, and for this we are grateful, Lord.”
She memorized those words and they came to her often over the years. This was not a wasteland. Far from it. She would fight for the little night heron, the mangrove trees, the flowing water, and the wild grasses. Surely, the river had a right to survive.
Nine
Here, read this while I drive,” Jackie instructed, and I was only too happy to oblige since her driving style, which never seemed to include both hands on the wheel, often made me wish I’d stayed at home in the company of my turtles.
Judd had drawn his map on the back of a piece of paper he must’ve torn from a school notebook. On one side was a to-do list that included “Mow Miss Turnipseed’s lawn,” “Ask Dad: bike tire,” “Fishing worms,” and “iron uniform.” The latter, I supposed, referring to the Civil Air Patrol outfit that made teenagers look like miniature grown-ups.
“Not that side,” Jackie said, glancing my way. “Flip it over.”
Why was it that I so often felt stupid around Jackie? Sure enough, the reverse side was Judd’s rendering of where he thought the new road had been carved into the swamp, based on what he’d seen from the air. Jackie had already gotten us to the Tamiami Trail and from there she headed north. Our first turn from the main road was supposed to be about a half mile past a combination bait shop and liquor store called Gin and Bare It. Judd had told Jackie it was easy to spot from the air on account of a gigantic painting of a naked lady on the tin roof, a revelation which, Jackie recalled, had left her momentarily speechless.
Jackie wrinkled her nose when we passed by, then slowed down so we could find the side road. “Hasn’t anyone in this county ever heard of a street sign?” Jackie complained. “Wait,” she added. “That must be it.”
Sam Cooke was singing “Another Saturday Night” on the radio, but the signal was already fading and Jackie turned it off. The side road was a lot like the one I took to Dolores Simpson’s fishing shack, only more remote. “Oh, rats, why did I get the car washed. Remind me next time I buy a car to get one of those surplus Jeeps from the war.”
The road showed signs of being heavily used, and recently. This was unusual. Even Jackie, city girl that she was, noticed the broken tree branches on either side, and she remarked about ruts in the road, which she maneuvered around rather expertly. I started looking for the next road, where we were supposed to make a right turn. “If we get stuck out here, we’re in trouble,” Jackie announced, as if it wasn’t obvious. Just as I was about to suggest we turn back, we came upon the right turn, or what we hoped was our right turn.
“Maybe we should have told someone we were heading out here,” I said.
“Judd knows,” Jackie said.
Of course he did. He’d made the map. And, knowing Judd, he was looking at his watch right now, trying to estimate our location.
“Jackie, you look to the front and I’ll look back,” I said.
“Of course I’m looking to the front, I’m driving the car!”
I paused. “Jackie, I guess no one ever told you this,” I said, choosing my words carefully, “but when you’re driving on a dirt road this far back in the swamp, it’s pretty easy to run over a snake. If you see one and you think you hit it, it’s important to say, ‘I think I just ran over a snake.’ And your passenger—that would be me—will need to be prepared to look back and see if it’s behind the car after you ran it over.”
“Well, where would it be if it isn’t behind the car?” Jackie asked.
“Could be it’s climbed in the car. But more likely underneath and wrapped around the axle.”
“Oh my God, that is disgusting! Ew! Ugh! I hate this place . . .”
I was sorry I’d said anything.
Jackie continued driving with her hands clutching the wheel. “How come nobody told me this before?” she whined.
“I have no idea,” I said. “I guess I should have told you. I m
ean, all the times you’ve driven to Priscilla’s grandma’s house, someone should have mentioned it. I guess we all thought you knew.”
Jackie made a sound like harrumph. “Whenever I learn something like this, it makes me wonder what else I don’t know,” she said. I was afraid she might turn around but she didn’t.
Another ten minutes, however, and she hit the brakes hard. A brand-new gravel road, twice as wide as the little unpaved side roads, appeared in front of us. Was it a mirage? I couldn’t have been more shocked if a UFO plopped down in front of us. Unlike the twisty, haphazard roads we were used to, this one was straight as a crow flies. It wasn’t paved like the Tamiami Trail but it still counted as bona fide by Collier County standards since an actual engineer, rather than Billy Joe down at the so-called highway department, seemed to have designed it. For example, it appeared to be properly graded. And gravel? That took planning. And money.
Jackie took a long drag on a cigarette. “How far do you think we are from home?” Her mood was serious, and I was grateful for it.
“A couple of miles,” I said. “Four or five, maybe. What does the odometer say?”
Jackie, for once, looked sheepish. “I didn’t check the odometer before we left.”
“Well then the only way to tell would be to climb a real tall tree.” Jackie gave me one of those “you’ve got to be kidding” looks.
“I’m not climbing a tree, and neither are you,” she said. “There are things in those trees. Horrible bugs! Snakes!” She shuddered, and I turned my head to the side so she wouldn’t see me hiding a smile. Poor Jackie. She was so far out of her element here that it was hard not to be amused.
And yet, fear was not a bad companion to have, back in the swamps. Distances were so hard to figure. At times, the marsh acted like a giant sponge that swallowed noise. Visually, it was even more confusing. You might come across a place that was wide open and meadow-like, with rabbits running around, or a stretch of open water with little islands where gators dozed on the banks and spoonbills perched in low-slung trees. In many parts of the ’Glades, though, you couldn’t see farther than the nose on your face, as my mama used to say.
“Let me see that map,” Jackie said. “If Judd is right, this new road is not more than a mile long, and the construction trailer should be right at the end of it.” She hit the gas a little too hard, causing the rear wheels to dig into the gravel and sending a thousand tiny pebbles flying. A hundred yards later, we saw something in the roadway: A gator not much bigger than a hound dog had parked its lazy self in the middle of the road. “Look at that disgusting thing!” Jackie said, slowly bringing the Buick to a stop. She pounded her fist on the horn, a loud blast that was completely ignored by the gator, which didn’t so much as twitch at the sound.
Jackie hadn’t yet accepted the fact that gator encounters were inevitable. Why, in Collier County, if you weren’t careful you could step on one dozing on your front steps. In fact, that’s how Mama’s friend Miss Fern Tootin died. Not that Miss Tootin got chomped by a gator. She tripped over it and fell. But it wasn’t the fall that killed her, either. It was on account of her being so annoyed at the gator that she fired a shot from a .22 caliber pistol, only the bullet ricocheted off her wrought-iron fence post and struck her dead.
Jackie honked again. “What the heck is wrong with it? Do you think it’s dead?” she shouted.
“Aw, come on, Jackie, it’s just a baby.”
“I should run over it,” she said.
“Jackie! How could you say that?!”
“Well, it’s not as if there aren’t a million of them around here. I don’t think anyone would miss one.”
“Jackie Hart, that little gator has more right to be here than you do! They’ve been here since time began, and you just got here in 1962.”
Jackie sighed and lit another cigarette, the fourth or fifth one since we started on this little journey. I noticed she was using a lighter I hadn’t seen before. “That’s nice,” I said quietly.
“What’s nice?”
“The lighter. Is it new?”
“Ted got it for me as a birthday present.” She handed it to me to look over. “It’s just like the one that Elizabeth Taylor owns. Well, not exactly, because hers is probably solid gold and mine is gold plate.”
This was getting to be a little peculiar. It was the second time in three days that Elizabeth Taylor, bless her heart, had unknowingly intervened and saved the day for me. Dang, that woman must have some mighty powers. She was clear across the country, in Beverly Hills, and just bringing up her name could change the course of a conversation all the way over here in the Everglades.
“It’s gorgeous,” I said. I didn’t smoke but even if I did I knew that a lighter like that would be out of my league. Jackie was one of those women who always looked good; my mama would have said it was on account of her having good cheekbones, though to be honest I never really understood what that meant.
“Look, Dora,” she said, “I’m sorry. Of course you know I would never have run over the, um, creature.”
“I’ll get out of the car and chase it to the side of the road,” I offered.
“Oh my God, Dora, don’t!”
“Jackie, it can’t be more than four feet long.”
“I’ll drive around it.”
“Well, then drive around the tail end of it, not the front end.”
“Huh?”
“Always drive behind an alligator’s tail end,” I explained patiently. “If you drive in front of it, it’s more likely to panic and run right in front of the car.”
“Oh for Pete’s sake!” She ground out her cigarette in the ashtray. “I’m not going around him! He’s going to have to get out of my way.” Jackie leaned on the horn again but the critter didn’t budge.
She lowered the power window and stuck her head out. “Get out of the road!” she shouted.
The poor beast, unmoved by the threat of a Buick weighing two tons or even the Yankee-style horn honking, was startled into action by Jackie’s hollerin’.
“Look at that,” Jackie said proudly. “It’s moving.” Sure enough, the gator, now wide-eyed and apparently sensing a true predator, started to creep forward, then move swiftly to the edge of the gravel road, where it vanished.
“Must have been the Boston accent,” I said. “He never heard one of those before.”
Jackie laughed. “What do you say we find that stupid trailer, and with any luck, your stupid former husband, and get this over with?” Before I could answer she pounced on the accelerator, fishtailing that Buick and giggling like a half-mad schoolgirl.
“Jackie, stop that! You must be damaging the road!”
“Oh, so what?” Jackie said. “Why can’t we have a little fun. Besides, you hate the road! It shouldn’t be here, right?”
I hung on for dear life, hoping Jackie wouldn’t lose control of the car and land us in the swamp. I had never known a married woman who acted like Jackie. I knew a few girls in high school with a similar wild streak but they’d changed overnight once they’d said their “I dos” and “I will obeys” at the altar.
There’s a saying that if marriage don’t change a woman, motherhood will. Well, that was not the case with Jackie, either. Many times the thought had gone through my head that her twin daughters and especially her son, Judd, were more mature than she was. When they’d arrived in Naples, the kids were wise, taking their time to adjust, but with Jackie, it was like she’d been shot out of a cannon. The womenfolk in town were appalled; the men were scandalized. Her fashion taste was more Ava Gardner than Florida matron, her intelligence was intimidating, and her tendency to speak her mind was shocking. She not only had opinions, she shared them.
The fact that her husband Ted was old Mr. Toomb’s newly hired business manager had given her some leeway. She and Mr. Toomb had their differences but they had buried the hatchet, for the time being at least. Of course, that’s what I hoped, but I also knew that Jackie was the kind of person who burned
up goodwill in a hurry.
Jackie finally calmed down and began driving like a normal person. I tried to focus on the possibility that I might be seeing Darryl. I was grateful that Jackie was with me; even though I never knew what she was going to do next, I could count on her friendship.
The road began to curve gently and suddenly there it was: a brand-new construction trailer. One vehicle, a pickup, was parked nearby. A man was hunched over slightly, studying something—maps maybe, or construction plans—that had been spread out on the hood.
Darryl.
My heart switched places with my stomach. I wanted to beg Jackie to turn around but somehow I summoned the courage to stifle the urge. I had to get this over with.
But as we drove closer, I soon forgot all my troubles. Jackie slammed on the brakes, and the car lurched to a stop. We were close enough to read the lettering on a sign that read Welcome to Dreamsville!
Ten
Now I was sorry. Oh, was I sorry. I wish I’d never come home. I wish I’d never been born. Most especially, I wish I wasn’t with Jackie Hart at that precise moment.
Jackie’s reaction was nothing less than I expected. “I’m going to kill him!” she screamed, and I was hopeful we were still far enough away that he didn’t hear her, though he looked up and stared in shock when he realized a strange car was sitting a piece down the road.
Miss Dreamsville and the Lost Heiress of Collier County Page 6