“Those articles consumed me. And now I’m here, back where I started. So,we’ll see if it works. But none of it will work without a story,” I said, getting to my feet, hoping she would burst from the exhaustion of having held such a tale of disrepute for so long that she could no longer control herself. But control herself she did.
She stood up.“Well, I’m sure you’ll find exactly what you need.”
“I’m sure I will. Thanks for listening. I’ve got to run and buy some appropriate clothes for this new job,” I said, motioning to the T-shirt and denim Capris I had on.
“You’ll do wonderfully, Savannah. Now go get beautiful.”
“I’m not looking for miracles, just closed-toed shoes.”
She laughed and walked me to the door. “I hope I’ll see you soon.”
“Oh, I’ll see you soon. Very soon, I’m sure.” And with that, I walked out the door, realizing I had a story. The story just needed to admit it should be told.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Ientered through the back gate that leads directly to Paige’s portion of the antique shop. I did this to avoid any questions her mother might ask, because they would be the same as my mother’s. She, like Vicky, never wears jeans and prefers heels over anything else. The fact that Paige and I came out so alarmingly normal still amazes us both.
As I came through the door, Paige was wrapping up a painting for a customer, a lady who owned one of the hospitality centers up the street. She was planning to send the piece to her daughter in Augusta for her birthday. We said our hellos, and I went behind the counter to unwrap the lunch I’d brought. Before Paige sat down, she turned the Open sign around to Closed.
“You’re going to have people so confused on when you’re open and closed that they’re going to start coming by at night just to try to catch you.”
“The joy of having your own business,” she mused.
“Speaking of having your own business, have you met Katherine Owens? She owns Katherine’s Corner Bookstore.”
“How long have you known me?”
“Too long.”
“Have you ever seen me with a book in my hand?”
“She carries magazines too.”
“Oh,well then, no, I haven’t met her yet. But I have all intents and purposes of meeting her soon.” She took a bite of her chicken wrap.
I told her all about Katherine and how lovely she was and about going into Gloria’s office and finding the tape and then realizing it was Katherine’s voice.“Why do you think she didn’t want to tell her story?”
“Maybe she’s really the Beauty Queen Serial Killer and decided at the last minute that she liked her life of freedom. She didn’t want to chance the world knowing her deeds of devastation,” she said, slurping like Hannibal Lecter.
“You have too much imagination,” I said, rolling my eyes and taking another bite of my sandwich. “Would you help me think? OK, she mentioned the pageant was rigged. But then she closed down. I mean, if Miss Georgia United States of America is rigged, that could mean that Vicky’s win was rigged.”
“Savannah, if you think you’ve had trouble with your mama in the past, you are asking for trouble of colossal proportion if you go tampering with her tiara.”
“Who does beauty pageants? Who would know something about this? You know everyone, Miss Social Queen.”
“Hey now, I’ve never been the queen of anything. You beat me, remember?”
“Homecoming queen doesn’t count. Besides,Vicky bribed half the campus with promises of pizza and Coke for lunch.”
“There was Emma Riley,” she said, hardly stopping to breathe as she engulfed what was left of her wrap.
“Emma Riley. Oh, that’s right. Emma did pageants forever. She was one of the most beautiful girls I’ve ever seen. Didn’t she win Miss Queen of Everything and move out to California with a beach bum or something?”
“You haven’t heard about Emma?”
“No, I haven’t heard about Emma. What? What!”
“Well, after she lost Miss Georgia Whatever, her life went to pot. She didn’t come out of her house for about six months, married the biggest loser in Savannah. Now she comes out every now and then, but no one hardly recognizes her because she looks so terrible. Has a busload of children with dirty faces and nasty tempers.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Nope. That is the truth as I see it from here.”
“And you see pretty much everything from here.”
“Absolutely. That’s why I chose this corner.”
“Maybe I need to visit Miss Emma.”
“Maybe you need to get your inoculations first. She’s a scary lady now.”
“You are such the overreactor.”
“Fine. Go see for yourself.”
“Watch me chase this crazy story. I’ll waste my first week and end up coming here to interview you and make you sound like you’re some great gift to the community. I’ll be writing obituaries by next week.”
“You laugh. You probably are supposed to be writing about me. I’m a human-interest story,” she said seriously.
“You’re a human-interest story all right. A young girl with rich parents who let her sell her paintings in the back of their store on the days she chooses to show up. People will only be interested in seeing if your parents ever thought of adoption,” I told her, picking up my fork to dig into my key-lime square.
“I’ve accomplished extraordinary things for my age.”
“Yes, you have. And I probably will share your story one day, but most everyone around here knows your story, and mine too probably, thanks to our respective mothers. But my first article has to be a bang. I have to leave them knowing that someone worthy of Gloria’s position has arrived.”
Paige swallowed the first bite of her key-lime square.“Oh,Savannah, this thing is delicious. Who made this? And if it’s a man, is he married?”
“Yes, it’s a man, and I have no idea if he’s married.”
“Where did you get this food?”
“It’s a new place. Wright’s Café, over off of West York.”
“Well, it’s divine.” Then, with her mouth full, she managed to say,“No, I know you’re right. And it sounds like this could be, hopefully, a wonderful discovery.”
“Yes, I really think it will.”We talked for a while longer, and I told her about my run-in with Grant. We both agreed that I should leave it at that and spend the rest of my life avoiding him and Miss Converse, but I wasn’t sure how long I’d be able to keep that up. Paige loved my new clothes, hated the shoes, and sent me off with instructions to check for a wedding band the next time I was at Wright’s Café.
Things were running as usual when I entered Dad’s coffee shop. Customers were coming in and out, giving Duke the usual devoted attention. Duke had decided to spend some time lying out on the sidewalk in hopes that some unwitting lady from the courthouse would forget Dad’s ban on feeding Duke the remainders of bagels and muffins.
Inside, Judge Hoddicks was at the counter, picking up his late-afternoon fix. He had an assistant, but not a day went by that he didn’t step out of his robe and into the Savannah sunshine for a little banter with Jake.“Hi, Judge.”
“Hi, Betty!” he said, grabbing me in a bear hug. I love that he still calls me Betty. “I hear you’re here to stay.”
“Can you believe it?”
“No, I thought for sure we’d lose you to one of those states up there in the North, writing your books, getting famous, and referring to us as those crazy people from the South.”
I laughed. “I did too! But then I came to the conclusion that I’m as crazy as the rest of you.”
“Well, you may not be happy about it, but I sure am,” he said with a kiss on the cheek and a smile as he headed for the door. “Jake, give Betty whatever she wants, and put it on my tab!” He walked out, never turning around.
“You got it, Judge,” Dad said, wiping off the counter and laughing at his old friend. Bef
ore I got situated good, Mervine came from the back, set a Coke down in front of me with a little nod and a sheepish smile, and disappeared again.
“Dad, have you ever in all these years asked why Mervine never talks?”
“Well, I just figured that Louise talks enough for the both of them, and Mervine’s never felt that anything else needed to be said. But I overheard Louise telling Richard one day not to let her shy, quiet personality fool you, because she talks a blue streak at home. So how was the apartment?”
“The Mini-Victoria across the street? I looked at it, realized I would have to have ten roommates to afford it, and said thanks but no thanks.”
“Has that stopped her?”
“You are such a funny man . What do you think?”
“I figure she’s got a contract on it as we speak.”
“And new-address postcards for me to mail out.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“Keep looking. But I must admit, it was fabulous.”
“With your mother, I have no doubts,” he said, getting up from his chair and heading toward the back.“So why are you declining?”
“Because it would defeat the purpose,” I said, following behind.
“You aren’t making your way in the world if your mother is paying your rent and bringing you dinner.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that,” he said. He turned around and started two new pots of coffee.
“I’m sure you are. But I’ll find one. My friend Claire’s got her real-estate license and she’s going to look for some things.”
“Well, that will be nice,” he said, giving me a kiss.
My mother’s voice was coming from the top of the stairs, sounding loud and irritated. I rounded the corner, peeked inside her room, and was greeted by her derrière protruding from underneath the bed skirt. I leaned up against her door, not wanting to miss whatever might be unfolding.
Her head finally popped out from under the bed, most of her hair all crowned nicely on the top, giving her a nouveau-retro kind of undone look. In her hand she held the shoe that matched the one already adorning her right foot—except for the nicely mangled heel and chewed up sling-back strap, evidence of a bored golden retriever with bitterness issues.
The look on her face was priceless. She grabbed her heart, feigning a heart attack from my unsuspected presence, and proceeded to tell me that Duke was going to be living at Jake’s.
I went into my bedroom to hide out until she left. I heard the clicking of what I assumed to be a different pair of heels go down the stairs and out the door. I gave her a few seconds to come back in case she forgot something, having learned this trick after getting caught on two occasions by her return for forgotten things.
The first time she caught me with a BB gun shooting at squirrels. The next time she caught me talking on the phone to Grant after we had both been put on phone restriction for the episode at John Wesley’s church. I wasn’t sure why she was leaving so late in the day, but then I remembered that it was Monday, and every other Monday evening she hosted a meeting of the local historical society at the Owens-Thomas house right after work, to discuss issues that needed to be dealt with in the Historical District regarding renovations and gaudy décor.
Having waited a sufficient amount of time, I headed to the attic and found a box marked “Pageant Keepsakes.” I opened it, trying to disturb as little as possible. Inside her box of keepsakes rests what most would consider trinkets of self-absorption. We all had a sneaking suspicion that Vicky crawled up here to peruse her little box of mementos, because every now and then you would see her walking around with pieces of insulation in her hair.
I’ve often wondered what it was that took her all the way to first runner-up at the Miss United States of America Pageant. After all, it’s hard for any young woman to look at her mother objectively. Young women see their mothers with guarded fear, ever cognizant that they are looking at what they could become.
Vicky competed in the Miss United States of America Pageant in 1976, the 200th anniversary of our Declaration of Independence. She chose a Statue of Liberty costume for the introduction of contestants. To her dismay and horror, over half of the girls wore their own Statue of Liberty costumes. I don’t know how she thought her costume would be original, but obviously, common sense wasn’t a prerequisite for competition in 1976. I told her she should have dressed up like Uncle Sam, because no other woman at a beauty pageant would dare dress up like a man. She could have won most original for sure. She didn’t laugh.
After moving aside her rather torched torch and gingerly placing her lovely silver-sequined statue costume on the floor, there on top of dried and crushed roses, banners, and other memorabilia was the 1976 program book. I pulled it out and laid it aside, then replaced everything with hopes that she would never notice. I was kind of surprised that her box wasn’t wired.
I began to flip through the pages carefully. If a beauty contest was rigged, the tampering would most logically begin with the judges or the auditors. I studied the page bearing their photos. Judge number one,Marcus Smythe, hailed from South Carolina. He looked kind of cartoonish, with thick gray hair, bow tie, and a sports coat. He was a local television personality there in the Low Country.
The second judge was a lady named Dr. Beverly Corzine from Tennessee, a Vanderbilt graduate and a physician in Nashville. She looked rather elegant, despite the super-fixed hairdo from the seventies.
The third judge was a dowdy-looking lady named Madeline Taylor. She looked downright manly and mad. My, what a combination for a pageant judge! She was a retired schoolteacher, and she wore her hair in a pageboy with chopped-off bangs that looked as if her granddaughter had made Grandma a beauty-school guinea pig. She wore glasses on a cord around her neck. Well, all you saw in the picture was the cord, but with those squinty, shifty eyes, you were sure glasses were hanging somewhere nearby. She hailed from Florida. So much for her joy of retirement in the Land of Sunshine.
Then there was judge number four, a distinguished-looking gentleman from Jackson, Mississippi. Wearing a coat and tie,he looked to be in his late forties. His name was Randolph Cummings III. He was a Mississippi attorney who also ran the local community theater in Jackson.
The final judge was a former Miss Georgia United States of America herself, Francis Margaret McEntire. She was from Atlanta and was a graduate of the University of Georgia, recently married and with a new baby on the way, her bio declared. So these were the five people who would decide which young lady would be dedicated to hosting local barbecues and talent competitions, visiting snotty-nosed kids in schools and kissing all over them, and cutting ribbons at the openings of local funeral homes and furniture stores. What excited a woman about all of that was beyond the power of my imagination. In 1976 at least, twenty-one women apparently found such a lifestyle worth coveting.
I turned the page. A section with no pictures read, “Auditors for the evening are Lynn and Larry Templeton of Templeton and Associates Accounting Firm of Macon.”
After looking at my mother’s program I didn’t know much more about pageants than I did when I began, but I was intrigued by the thought that anyone would bother rigging a pageant in the first place. It seemed ridiculous and petty. Even so, it had happened at least one time, at least as far as Katherine was concerned. I had a week to kill, and I might as well kill it well. Then I caught myself. “I don’t have a week to kill,” I said out loud.“I have a week to produce a human-interest story. Lord, help us all.” Fortunately, the Lord knew I really meant it.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Before anyone came home for the evening, I left a note on the kitchen counter that I was having dinner out. Across the street at Clary’s, maybe, but it was “out” nonetheless. I ate dinner and consumed two shakes and three Cokes, all the while staring at my house. I watched as every light turned off, including the ones inside Clary’s, and they told me to go home or clock in.
Standing on the steps to my house, I kne
w my growing dread wasn’t over the apartment taunting me from across the street. My real concern was how to confront Vicky with the possibility that the Miss Georgia United States of America pageant had once or ever or always been rigged. Over dinner and liquid chocolate, I had asked myself a million questions, most of them regarding my mother’s reaction.
If for one moment she thought she had not won her title because she was the best in the show . . . well, it would be a ruin like no other. I would be released from the family. My scooping abilities would become the bane of my mortal existence. My name would never be spoken again.
The more I thought about it, however, the more I concurred the drama might actually be worth watching. But then again, this claim of Katherine’s, accompanied by proof I would have to uncover, could destroy my mother’s greatest achievement. That in and of itself was, at its core, unfair.
And so I decided I would not share an ounce of this with my family until I could prove that it was true. At least for tonight, I wanted my mother to lay her head on her pillow believing that she was still a former Miss Georgia United States of America simply because the judges thought she should be. I wasn’t willing to take that from her . . . unless I absolutely had to.
I tried to be as quiet as possible, slipping up the stairs and closing the door behind me. No sooner had I turned the light on and flung my shoes across the room than there was a knock at my door. I opened it to find Thomas and Duke peering back at me.
“Can we come in for a minute?” he asked.
They plopped themselves on the bed, and I headed to the bathroom to apply Noxzema and brush my teeth. “It looks like you already have.”
He watched me lather my face.
“Is that what all girls do before they go to bed?”
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