Dixie Divas

by Virginia Brown

  As if afraid to wake the saints of old houses, she whispered, “Beautiful. Just beautiful!”

  I have to admit she’s right. Oval-framed photographs of family members in garments a hundred and forty years old hang on walls. The walnut mantel over the fireplace holds more old photos in small frames, a chunky bronze statue of a soldier on a horse, and a pair of crystal candlesticks. A low fire burned behind solid brass andirons. The front room is filled with antiques, and just a glimpse into the dining room across the foyer promised more treasures in the heavy furniture and wide sideboards against two walls.

  Since I don’t know that much about antiques or old houses, I followed along as Mr. Sanders gave us the royal tour. Bitty kept clasping her hands in front of her face as if praying, and murmured in rapture while we looked at huge old beds with wooden canopies and mosquito netting, cedar wardrobes that go all the way to the ceiling and still hold clothes from the 1800s, and gilded mirrors with a mottled tinge betraying their age. Carpets laid over bare heart pine floors look as if they hadn’t been walked on in years.

  By the time the tour was over, Bitty had almost convinced Sanders to allow his house to be put on the historic register and added to the tour. He still had reservations and muttered about turning his home into a circus, but had definitely wavered. Bitty really is good. She should sell real estate or run for Congress.

  When we got down to the foyer again with Tuck tagging along at our heels, Bitty picked up a bronze statue from a small parquet table. “This is General Grant, isn’t it?” she asked.

  For the historically uninformed, General Grant was a Civil War general who burned and slashed his way across Mississippi in 1862, but spared most of HollySprings. Legend says it was because the ladies were so pretty and treated him to nightly piano concerts, but historical fact has a different version.

  Ulysses Sherman Sanders was named in honor of Generals Grant and Sherman, since his family had taken possession of The Cedars right after the war when taxes were high and Confederate income non-existent. As Yankees, they were not enthusiastically welcomed into the community. A few generations have gone by since then and hostilities have ceased for the most part, even if not been completely forgotten by some.

  Sanders bristled at any hint of censure in Bitty’s question. “That’s right; it’s a statue of General Grant. Got a problem with that?”

  “Heavens no. General Grant was an absolute gentleman while he and his troops stayed in HollySprings, though I can’t say the same for all his soldiers. With some exceptions, of course,” she added hastily, apparently remembering that Sherman Sanders’ ancestor had been one of those Union soldiers. “This statue’s very heavy. Is it weighted?”

  Sanders nodded. “I reckon so. Probably because it’d be top heavy otherwise, what with the general liftin’ his sword like that.”

  Bitty smiled and set it down carefully. “I’ll be back in a day or two to discuss what needs to be done before the tour. Even though The Cedars hasn’t yet been put on the historic register, we can fill out the paperwork and submit it. I don’t think there’ll be any problem at all. You’ve done such a wonderful job taking care of this house. I honestly don’t think there’s another house in MarshallCounty that’s been kept up nearly this well. Most need extensive renovations.”

  Sanders puffed up his chest. He still held his shotgun, but just by the barrel now. I hoped that was a good sign.

  Tuck suddenly barked and rushed toward the open screen door, making me jump. We all looked outside. Something big and brown had its head stuck in the pot of chicken and dumplings. Before Bitty or I could move, Sanders started to cussing, and banged out the screen door and took a shot at the aluminum pot. Rock salt pellets pinged against metal, and the mule made a strangled sound and took off down the rutted drive wearing the pot up to its eyeballs and shedding chicken and dumplings behind it. Tuck immediately took advantage of this unexpected windfall, and the pot-blinded mule ran into a tree. The impact knocked it backwards so that it sat on its haunches blinking dumplings from its eyes while the liberated pot rolled across the yard. Tuck greedily and happily worked the path the pot had taken, slurping loudly. The mule got up and shook itself free of dumplings, obviously unharmed. And unfazed.

  Bitty and I just stood there transfixed by the entire thing. Mr. Sanders heaved a disgusted sigh.

  “Blamed mule,” he said. “I swear it’s part goat. Ate half my hat last week.”

  Roused from temporary astonishment, Bitty said brightly, “Well, I’ll just have to cook you up another big batch of chicken and dumplings. Don’t worry about the pot. I have another one at home.”

  We were halfway back to Cherryhill before we started laughing. Bitty had to pull over to the side of the road so we wouldn’t wreck. Finally I wiped tears from my eyes and tried to keep from snorting through my nose. I have a tendency to do that when I’m hysterical with laughter.

  “Is putting this house on the tour worth another pot of chicken and dumplings?” I asked as soon as I was snort-free.

  Bitty nodded. “As many as it takes. I’ll just have to buy more ingredients and take them over to Sharita’s house.”

  “You fraud. Someone else cooked them for you?”

  “Good Lord, Trinket, you know I can’t cook. If I’d cooked them we’d have been shot, stuffed, and mounted over that magnificent walnut mantel. Did you see it? All those gorgeous hunting scenes carved into the wood . . . I thought I’d pass out from pure pleasure.”

  Bitty and I have different values in many ways. While I appreciate antiques and old houses and generations of custom, it’s more in an abstract kind of way. Bitty has obviously made it her reason for living. There are different ways of handling divorce and that empty feeling you get even if the relationship degenerated into nastiness and you’re happy to see the last of him. My divorce was pretty straightforward. Bitty’s last divorce made waves throughout the entire state.

  Bitty let me off in front of my house. “I’m going shopping for new shoes,” she said, and tooled on down our circular drive with a happy wave of her hand. I smiled and shook my head. Now there’s a woman who knows how to cope.

  Mama and Daddy had gone from playing gin to planning a cruise. Pamphlets were spread over the kitchen table. Something familiar smelling simmered on the stove, and afternoon light made cozy patterns on the walls and floor. Brownie slept in a patch of sunshine. He’s a beagle-dachshund mix with long legs, a short body, a dachshund head and coloring, and a beagle’s loud bay. He can be heard three counties over when he scents a squirrel. He’s also neurotic.

  “Where are you going?” I asked my parents when I’d hung my sweater on a coat hook beside the back door and stood looking over Daddy’s shoulder at the array of pamphlets.

  “I was thinking we’d enjoy rafting down the Colorado River. But your mother wants to take the Delta Queen down to New Orleans. They have a cruise in March this year. It’s usually June before the cruises start, but it’s been chartered just for us retired postal employees.”

  Mama looked up. “I thought it’d be nice to travel down the river like those old gamblers used to do. Do you remember Maverick? Not the movie. The old TV show. James Garner always did well. I have a feeling I might be just as lucky.”

  “Huh,” Daddy said. “You just think you’re a card shark now because you beat me at gin.”

  “Three times,” Mama said with a big smile.

  I thought it best not to interfere. “What’s for supper?” I asked instead.

  “Chicken and dumplings.”

  My parents just looked at me as if I’d lost my mind when I started laughing, and I heard Mama say to Daddy in a low tone, “Hormones. Must be The Change.”

  Chapter Two

  Even though Bitty asked me if I wanted to go along when she took Mr. Sanders another pot of chicken and dumplings, I decided to go in to HollySprings instead. I had a few errands to run, and besides, I’d been thinking about getting a part-time job.

  When I’d quit work I’
d taken my 401k and all the money from my savings and invested it in a few CDs and some annuities, but I really don’t have any idea where it’s best to put it. After all, it’s not that much money, but it’s all I have for my old age. While some days I feel my old age is already here, I figure it’ll be a few years yet before I can spend money without worrying about having to live under a concrete overpass and eat cat food in my “golden” years.

  I dressed carefully. I wore tan flats that matched my A-line skirt and jacket and wouldn’t intimidate any man under five-nine. Some men equate height with masculinity, and resent females the least bit taller. It can be a disadvantage when seeking employment. I dabbed on a minimum of make-up, just enough to look professional without resembling a circus clown. Age can be tricky with a woman’s face, and I didn’t want to look foolish. The only jewelry I wore was a watch and a pair of emerald stud earrings my daughter had given me for my birthday a few years before.

  Mama and Daddy were cuddled up in front of a fire in the living room and watching an old movie with Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert when I stuck my head in the door to tell them goodbye. Brownie lay on the couch between them, his head resting on Mama’s lap.

  “Good luck, sugar,” Mama said, “I know you’ll find work. You’ve always been quite competent.”

  Competent is supposed to be a compliment, but somehow, it sounds rather flat to me. An “average” kind of thing. But I knew Mama didn’t mean it that way, so I said back, “I’ll see you in a little while,” and went out the back door and crossed the gravel path to the garage.

  Yesterday’s beautiful weather had turned into February again. A raw wind blew, and rain bloated heavy gray clouds churning over Cherryhill. I paused for a moment to look at the house. After seeing how well-kept Sanders maintains The Cedars, I have a new appreciation for the years of work Daddy has put into their house and grounds. The two stories rise serenely atop a small hill overlooking rolling meadows around it, painted a white that’s only slightly peeling in places. It isn’t as big as many of the houses in the county, and doesn’t look at all like Tara from Gone With the Wind, or even Montrose, a red brick antebellum house with four white columns that’s the pride of the annual pilgrimage and seat of the Holly Springs Garden Club.

  What it does look like is a comfortable home. The large front porch leads to a generous door outfitted with an old-fashioned doorbell, the kind that has to be twisted to make it ring. Just inside, the staircase goes up to a landing, and then turns right. It has a curved oak banister with a graceful loop at the bottom step, polished to a high gleam by four generations of Truevine kids sliding down it, and oak steps the years have burnished to a soft golden color no paint or varnish can ever match. To the left of the small entrance hall is the dining room, to the right, the living room that used to be the parlor. All the ceilings are twelve feet high. Fireplaces are in each room, some of them just for looks now, some of them still working. Behind the living room, the sitting room has been turned into my parents’ bedroom so they don’t have to go up and down the stairs. A generous bathroom has been added under the stairs, and a large kitchen has been updated. A laundry room is next to a back door that leads out onto a nice cedar deck that my father and his brother built years ago. In spring, half a dozen cherry trees blossom in what used to be a fruit orchard, looking like a wide swathe of pink cotton candy in the back and side yards.

  Upstairs, there are three bedrooms and a nice-sized bathroom that started out as part of the sleeping porch. The west end of the glassed-in sleeping porch runs along the back of the master bedroom to the end of the house. It used to be my parents’ bedroom. Now it’s my room. I like to go sit out on the sleeping porch early in the morning and at dusk. When it’s very cold I light a fire in the bedroom, but just for ambience. Two central heating and air conditioning units added twenty-odd years ago work just fine for the entire house.

  One of the other bedrooms belonged to my older brother and my younger brother. They both died in Vietnam. Now their room is empty, kept just as it was the day my brothers left. The other room belonged to me and my twin sister, Emerald. She lives in Oregon with her husband and umpteen children. We’ve never been that close despite sharing a womb and a room.

  There’s not much left of our land now since Daddy sold most of it and leases other tracts to farmers with cow herds, but enough so that we still feel isolated and protected. Just down the road, there are new houses with swing sets in the back yards and subdivision streets named things like Whispering Willow Wind and Cherry Blossom Surprise. Our street is still called Truevine Road, named for my great-great-grandfather who started a church right after the Civil War and Grant’s march left behind a lot of blackened fields, burned-out homes, and despairing souls. The Eureka Truevine church is gone now, burned down a few decades before when electrical wiring installed some time in the early thirties ignited a fire, but its name lives on in me.

  I started my car and pulled out of the garage that had once been a cattle barn, and set out for HollySprings. It isn’t far at all, and in fifteen minutes I pulled my car up in front of the café across from the court house on the square. The old clock in the cupola on top of the court house has been fixed. The hands move slowly but steadily, clicking the minutes with big black hands.

  Budgie Mason, who manages the café and serves plain food at good prices, waved at me and I waved back. I knew her from my childhood. Her parents had lived down Truevine Road, and her father had raised cotton and lots of kids. He’d done well with both. Budgie looks a lot like she did as a kid—slender and energetic, with a crop of curly black hair she usually kept tied in a ponytail atop her head. The hair might now have some gray streaks, but it’s still tied in a ponytail on top of her head.

  It started to rain and I hurried across the street to the court house and stepped inside. In the center of the foyer sits a gigantic glassed-in clock, the machinations whirring. To one side is a staircase that leads up to offices and courtrooms, to the other side are more high-ceilinged rooms that house county government offices.

  I went straight over to the county clerk’s office and asked for an employment application before I lost my nerve. After all, once I’d been an executive secretary in a large chain of hotels. This was hardly a step up the career ladder. Still, an honest job is an honest job.

  Apparently, despite the glowing reports on TV and in the newspapers about the profusion of available jobs, it didn’t apply to HollySprings government offices. Not that week, anyway.

  I decided the only thing to assuage my disappointment might be a generous helping of hot peach cobbler topped with vanilla ice cream, so I crossed the street in the rain to Budgie’s café. It now belongs to a man from Ohio who decided to invest in Mississippi real estate, but at least he has the good sense to keep Budgie on as the manager. After Budgie’s husband took off and her parents went into a nursing home, she had to sell the café to pay for expenses. It’s still called Budgie’s café, despite the sign out front that says French Market Café in fancy lettering

  It’s a neat little place, with round tables and chairs made out of curved iron, and walls painted in bright colors. A few framed posters of ladies in big hats sitting at French cafés hang on the walls. A long Formica counter holds a cash register, a chubby ceramic chef wearing a Gallic mustache and holding a small sign announcing the specials of the day, and a slender vase filled with plastic flowers. Next to the flowers is a pretty crystal jar with dollar bills inside to encourage tips. Tables sport brightly colored plastic cloths, votive candles, and brass napkin and condiment racks. Menus run more to hot biscuits and milk gravy, grits, cornbread, and chicken fried steak than they do to croissants, but do offer beignets and hot chicory coffee like Café Du Monde in New Orleans. France comes to HollySprings.

  Since the breakfast rush was over and the lunch rush hadn’t started, and I was the only one in the café, Budgie met me at a corner table by the window with a cup of coffee and a small pitcher of cream. “How are Uncle Eddie and Aun
t Anna doing?” she asked.

  Everyone familiar with my parents calls them that, whether they’re related or not. When I was a kid, other kids knew they could count on my parents for help or advice on almost anything. Except me. Somehow, I’d never tapped into that. My mother still refers to me as her “most active child.” That’s a tactful synonym for hellion.

  “They’re doing fine,” I said. “When I left they were cuddled up on the couch watching an old thirties movie of Gable and Colbert chasing each other.”

  “That’s so sweet.”

  “By the time I get back, they’ll have probably planned a camel trip along the Nile.” I put a few packets of artificial sweetener in my coffee and followed it with a generous splash of cream. “If they get to the stage of buying plane tickets, I might have to lock them in the basement.”

  Budgie laughed, and I took a sip of my coffee. She had no way of knowing I wasn’t kidding about it. There should be some kind of instruction book on babysitting parents who are elderly, mobile, and have a checking account and credit cards.

  “You’re lucky,” Budgie said. “My parents are in a nursing home and don’t even know each other, much less me. The only bright spot is that I finally divorced that rotten husband of mine—Oh. Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned that.”

  It doesn’t matter how well related you are to anyone in Holly Springs, or how long you’ve been gone; everyone you grew up with knows almost everything there is to know about you. Some people might consider that a disadvantage, but it does save a lot of lengthy explanations.

  “If you’re talking about my divorce, it doesn’t bother me,” I said. “We’re still cordial. I’m just glad he’s far away and out of my life. Today I’m celebrating being turned down for a job in every government department in the court house. Do you have any peach cobbler?”