I gave her another brief eyebrow raise.
“Yes, I have, I tell ya. It was my second time in Miss Georgia United States of America. The girl that won played the drums. Now, no lady should play the drums. You have to sit there with your legs spread-eagle and bang around and shake your head until your bun falls down. I don’t even know the song she was playing. She clanged so loud on those cymbals and beat that big ol’ front drum so hard you couldn’t even hear her music. She was horrible. And she won. I sang an aria, fluttered around that stage like a gazelle, and didn’t miss a note, including the climax of a C above high C. I have a tape of my song in my bag. Would you like to hear it?” she asked, eyes brighter than an exploding Fourth of July.
I should have stopped her there. But no, ridiculous me gave a nod. I just thought a head shake would be entirely too rude. I have no idea why I even cared. But I did. This was an unfortunate creature in front of me. She had no life. Well, no real life. She lived in a world of sequins, teased hair, and fake everything. And me, stupid me, gave her pity at the wrong time, because my nod took me to a place few should ever have to travel.
Now when someone tells me she has a tape of her song, my first thought is that she is actually singing on tape. Simply having to listen to a taped copy of her talent presentation would be persecution enough, but what actually happened teetered on the horrendous. This was no tape of her singing; this was her accompaniment. The actual singing was going to be done live and in person by Miss Savannah United States of America herself.
She hit an opening note that was so loud, my head flew back and embedded itself in the headrest of the driver’s seat, where it stayed for the rest of the performance. For the next three and a half minutes, she performed an operatic aria, right there in the front seat of my car. She had motions; she had expressions; she had earth-shattering, only-dogs-could-hear piercing notes. Passersby stared at us. What was I to do? I did the only thing I knew: I waved.
At one point Amber became so animated that I actually believe she forgot she was sitting in an automobile, on the side of the road, in front of someone’s home. I thought those few minutes would last an eternity. I thought I would never hear the final note. And when it finally came, I thought for sure every window in my car was going to shatter. I had just been presented an entire talent presentation. When she finished, I simply remained in my impacted, strained-neck, totally frazzled position and prayed for rescue.
“Now, can you imagine that being beaten by a drummer? She won and I left with some money and soon-to-be-dead flowers. The whole thing’s rigged, I tell you. Because honey, the day I lose to a bong-bong player, you can bet your sweet rose-smelling britches that pageant is rigged.”
With those words I should have jumped. I should have tackled that moment like Ellis Johnson tackles Steve McNair, but suddenly it just didn’t seem to matter. The entire thing rested on the ridiculous. Grown women prancing around a stage, vying for the attention of five people, each trying to get the judges to view her as better than the one before. Grown women singing their talent numbers in the cars of virtual strangers. What did it matter? Why had I bothered with something so preposterous? Even I, for one fleeting moment,wondered if Mr. Cummings’s words weren’t true. Maybe it really didn’t matter. Miss Amber Topaz didn’t get it. So, maybe none of it really mattered. Maybe this whole thing had been a waste of time.
“Well, toodleoo, Miss Savannah. I’ll see you tomorrow, and we’ll figure out what we’re going to do for lunch on Wednesday. You take care. You might need to get some major rest. You look a little stressed.” And with that she closed the door and skipped her happy little self on down the street and out of sight. I waited until she was completely gone to extricate my head from the headrest. It was now close to six, and I went promptly into the house and up to my bedroom. I laid myself across the bed.
When I woke up, the clock beside me read one a.m.
I decided to go downstairs and get a bowl of cereal. There was a note on the kitchen counter from my mother.
Savannah, I was going to wake you for dinner, but you looked exhausted. I hope your day went OK, and just remember that you were created for this job. I love you, Mother.
I still wasn’t sure why she was so happy for me and this job, but at this moment I was too hungry to care. I poured a bowl of Cocoa Pebbles,walked over to the sofa, and turned on the TV. Tan Beautiful was being advertised. It is amazing how quickly those infomercials can snare you in their tangled web. Before I knew it, I had ordered two bottles with rush delivery.
When I finally returned to bed, I lay there staring at the ceiling and began to think of the stars of my beauty pageant story, and of how different each woman was:Victoria, so together; Emma, so traumatized; Katherine, so over that stage of her life. Very different women all uniquely touched by the same bizarre experience.
I bolted up in bed. That was it. My story wasn’t so much about the pageants as much as it was about the people in the pageants. The thoughts began to come so fast and furious that by the time I fell asleep, the whole story was neatly written in my head.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
I headed downstairs around seven forty-five. Mother had prepared my favorite breakfast: chocolate gravy and biscuits.
Trust me on this one. It is absolutely the best stuff I have ever put in my mouth. She makes homemade biscuits, then prepares a chocolate gravy, similar to what you would use as icing for a cake, but not quite as thick.
It is because of Vicky’s culinary skill that we even supported her decision to write a cookbook. She wanted to compete with her good friend Paula Deen, who owns The Lady &Sons, one of the best restaurants in town. Paula has her own cookbooks and her own show on the Food Network, which is perfectly charming and perfectly Savannah. One night after dinner, we were going on about what a fabulous cook my mother is, and she decided that since we loved her cooking so much, maybe she should write a cookbook. We all agreed, thinking it would keep her out of our business for a while. Well, it did, and the result is Dining with Victoria.We tried to get her to call it Victoria’s Vittles, but she didn’t think that sounded Martha Stewart enough. I know in the back of her mind she is trying to build her own Martha Stewart conglomerate of the South. Well, maybe not so much anymore.
The cover picture has her standing in our kitchen holding up one of her silver platters with pork tenderloin, southern mashed potatoes, and green beans. It was pre-hair-fallout, when the color was still red. She was wearing a beautiful yellow suit, accessorized to perfection. She did look stunning. But now that she’s chestnut, she wants to take a new cover picture. For that reason alone, it will probably never be published. If she took a new picture she’d have another hairstyle by the time the book came out anyway. It would be a cruel and vicious cycle for some local photographer, pity the soul.
And trust me, we will never mention the word television.
“Thank you for not waking me up last night; I was exhausted,” I said, taking a plate from the counter.
Mother turned around at the sound of my voice.“Oh, I could tell that you were exhausted. I’m sorry things haven’t turned out like you planned,” she said, opening the refrigerator and pouring me a glass of milk. She walked over and pulled out the chair beside me.“When is your story due?”
I took a drink of milk before responding. “I must deliver my copy into Mr. Hicks’s hands by two. So I have from now until then to create a story.”
“Well, you need to remember that these are people, Savannah, not characters. You’re writing truth, not fiction.”
Now, where did that come from? I didn’t have time to investigate.“ Speaking of characters, I saw the lovely character creation of your own yesterday.”
“Savannah Phillips, bite your tongue. I did not create that child. She is a creation of . . . I’m not sure what yet. She cracks me up, though, and I think she stands a great shot at becoming Miss Georgia United States of America this year.”
“Don’t you think she would have won by
now if she could have?”
“I think there’s a timing for everything in life, Savannah. Sometimes we think things should happen at a certain time, in a certain way, but there is a master plan. So we brush ourselves off and learn from our mistakes, and try not to make the same ones again, all the while doing what we feel it is we’ve been called to do.”
“So at what point is it fair to ask yourself if maybe, just maybe, you aren’t following the master plan? I mean, if I had tried to write three different books and none of them ever got published, I would start to wonder if that was what I was supposed to do.”
Victoria smiled at me in the way she does when she is about to say something truly profound. “Yes, and you should. But only you can figure that out for yourself. What if all of those books that failed gave you the idea for a fourth book, the one that gets published? Then you could reasonably say each rejection paved the way to success. See, Savannah, you have to be careful not to put destiny into a mold. Each life has its own.”
Then back to the world of Mary Kay we went. “Anyway, Amber really does do a wonderful job. She has the perfect personality for tourism director and she’s delicate with the adjustments that have to be made over there quite often.”
“Yeah, she told me about your adjustments. You need to leave those poor people alone, Mother. You have them so nervous! One day you’re going to be on the back of a trolley and they’re going to spot you and send that trolley right into the statue of General Oglethorpe. It’s not right what you put those people through.”
“Well, you don’t need to worry about what I do in this city. I have it perfectly under control,” Vicky said, standing up and pretending to put away dishes.
“Under control? Wait a minute. Aren’t you the one who climbed into the horse-drawn carriage and screamed so loud when a wasp flew up her dress that the poor horse had to be sedated before they could hook him up to a carriage again? That’s just wrong, Mother.”
“Is that all you remember about me? Can you not recall sometimes the multitude of good I do around here?” She pretended to act all pouty, but I could tell she got a kick out of the memory too.
I wiped my mouth and took my plate over to the sink where she was.“Trust me, I know all of the wonderful things you do, and taking care of us is the most wonderful of all. Especially this,” I said pointing to the empty plate in front of me.“I’ve got to go. I’ll remember what you said.” I kissed her on the cheek and headed out the door. “I love you,” I called out on the way.
“I love you too, darling,” I heard from a distance.
“Well, I guess you’re ready to write that story?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be.”
Dad paused for a moment, then closed the top of the Coke machine and stepped aside to let me have my fill. He leaned against the counter, and by the look in his eyes, I knew he had something to say.
“You can say whatever it is you’re wanting to say, Dad. Mother had her turn; feel free to take yours.”
“You know you can tell me anything, Savannah. In fact, until now, you have always told me everything. When you were little, you actually told me more than I really wanted to know, from every stubbed toe to broken heart to bad prom dress. So why have you had trouble letting me in on this one?”
“What do you mean?”
“Telling me what this story is about. Your mother won’t even tell me anything, and that woman is incapable of keeping a secret. But apparently she feels strongly that it should come from you,” he said with an expression I’m not quite sure I had ever seen on his face before.
It wasn’t a look of hurt so much as it was of perplexity. I could see in his eyes; he was wondering if the time to let me go had come yet again. I had slipped from his arms to the hairy halls of preschool; I had kissed him good-bye and climbed into the car with Grant for my first real date; I had closed my college dorm-room door behind him when he left me there to enter the world of adulthood. But I had never closed the door to our conversations.
I had always told him everything. But today,Vicky knew something he didn’t. The poor man had to be suffering.
I hadn’t realized until that moment that I was changing. Not everything would be known to my parents anymore. Not every detail of my life would be disclosed, because there’s no need, really, to expose parents to unnecessary knowledge. Who wants her parents to carry her hurt when she knows she will recover, while they might not? Today was our shifting. It had happened without fanfare or even true awareness. I had become the protective parent; he had become the curious child.
I smiled at the concern in his eyes. “You know, when I was little you wouldn’t let me watch something on TV because you didn’t want it to scare me.”
“That’s because you were scared of your shadow.”
“Still am. Then there were also the times when someone would be in here early in the morning talking about something, and you would quiet them because you didn’t want me to hear.”
“You were very nosy.”
“Still am. But even though I didn’t understand, I knew it was for my own good. I guess this is one of those times. But this time I’ve been protecting you. Not from anything horrible or sordid,” I said quickly when his look of concern grew exponentially.
“See, I’ve been trying to protect you from the need to protect her. So, before you ask, just know, I will do nothing to hurt her, harm her, or cause her pain. As for us, maybe the tide has turned. But nothing will ever change the way I feel about you,” I said, encasing him in a bear hug. Then I whispered in his ear, “I’m growing up, Dad. I won’t be able to tell you everything anymore. But I’m sure I’ll still tell you far more than you’ll ever want to know.” He held on a little tighter than he had in years. When he let go, his face registered that he understood.
“Are you ready for another day at work?”
“No.”
“Are you ready for your story?”
“No.”
He paused for a moment, not sure if he should ask any more questions, so he settled for the one he already knew the answer to. “Would you like another Coke?”
“Yes!” I said. He took the glass from my hand and filled it up. He looked at the clock, which read 8:15.
“Take this Coke. Grab a banana off of the counter if you’re hungry. Get in your car, gather your thoughts, and go to work. And when you are there, take yourself, your very talented self, go to your office, and write an article like this city has never read,” he said, his eyes just hinting at tears.“Do that, Savannah, and this transition will have been worth it.”
I had spent my life knowing that my father was the finest of men. But there are encounters in life that take things we’ve known forever in our heads and channel them into the chambers of our hearts. I call it the “second look” moment. Most people stop at first looks, never taking a second glance to really see what has transpired in an experience.
Today,my father became a person, a person to discover, a person to cherish. In that moment my father became Jake, not just Dad. In my car, I gathered myself and wiped away the tears that had begun to flow down my face. I didn’t know what awaited me today, but the unfolding of a story could never match what had just developed in the last few moments of my life.
“Hey, you must be Marla. I’m Savannah Phillips,” I said, holding out my hand to the sweet face smiling behind the receptionist’s desk.
“Well, Savannah Phillips,” she said, refusing my hand and proceeding to get up and walk around her desk to face me.“I feel like I know you,” she said, grabbing me in a bear hug.“You are just the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. We’re so glad you’re here. Mr. Hicks is a tad concerned, but we’re thrilled to have Victoria Phillips’s very own daughter working right here among us,” she said. “Now, I’ll just be right here, behind my little desk. I’m only a phone call away. So you just ring-a-ding me if you need anything,” she said, returning to her place.
“Thank you. I think I’m good for now. But if I need you
, I’ll be sure to call. Oh, but would you mind holding my calls today, Marla? This is my first story, and I want to make sure I make it good.”
“Not at all, dear. You just go write this paper one amazing story.”
“Thank you. I’ll do my best.”When I arrived at my new home away from home, I pulled a stack of books from my bedroom library out of my backpack. A girl needed to have something inside this monotone mausoleum to add a little color, and nothing added color like books. I stood them up neatly and made a mental note to acquire some bookends. Curly Locks flip-flopped in during my designing moment. I could tell he wanted to have a conversation, but I stopped him before he started. “Don’t. I’ve got too much work to do. I’ve got a story due by two, and it’s got to be perfect,” I said, holding out my hand and never looking in his direction.
“Your computer isn’t even on.”
I reached down and pushed a button.“It is now.” He disappeared for the rest of the morning.
And for the rest of the morning, I shut myself off from the world. I typed, retyped, wiped out, started over, and all but turned the thing inside out and upside down until my first story was fully complete.
When two o’clock came, it was finished—a human-interest story that would set Savannah on its ears. When the last page had printed, I grabbed my “copy,” as they call it in the newspaper world, put it in a folder marked “Savannah Phillips,” and headed to the third floor.
After only one wrong turn, which put me in a broom closet, I arrived in the proper place, but Mr. Hicks was nowhere to be found. His secretary wasn’t there either. For a fleeting moment I wondered if Mr. Hicks actually had a secretary. After much reflection, I set my folder on his desk and walked out. I had done my job . Mr. Hicks would now have to do his.
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