I sat down at the edge of the bar and rested my elbows on the black soapstone countertop. Putting my face in my hands, I let out an extended sigh. But I wasn’t totally alone. I was joined by the presence of official Phillips-family collapse. I stared at the empty dinner table where someone always sat. I stared at the empty oven that always had something baking in it by this time of the evening. I stared at the empty pathway between island and counter that always had a woman flittering up and down it . Tonight,my mother was outside on a Friday evening, and not for a dinner engagement.
Well, come to think of it, it was going to end up a dinner engagement.
I stood . Wiped away my cares and declared to the empty room, “Well, this will just get me in practice for living on my own. No one will be there to cook me dinner. So I’m just going to seize the moment.”
I called Paige to see what she was eating.
“Do you have any food?” I asked, flopping myself onto one of her two new chocolate-brown leather sofas with stainless-steel legs that flanked her fireplace.
“Child, when have you known me not to have food?”
I let the soft leather cradle my head. “I mean real food. Not Doritos, dip, and Diet Coke.”
“Savannah has had a bad day?” She came over and sat on the edge of the sofa beside me and patted my head.“Poor baby needs real food. Real food it is.”
With that she called out for pizza delivery and bounced back down on her brown and Tiffany blue velvet-covered ottoman that served as her coffee table. Her perfectly messy short blond hair bounced with her. Not that it’s her natural color. But it does look natural on her.
She has had the same great short cut since I met her in sixth grade. Except for our eighth-grade year, when we both had failed attempts at perms. I tried short once. But only once. I looked like a boy and spent the next year suffering through insufferable grow out. No more haircuts above the shoulders since.
“Okay, tell me all your troubles.”
I looked up at her in total shock. “You mean you don’t know?!” I asked as I reached down to scratch my itching foot.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m scratching my foot. Do you know what that means?”
“It itches?”
“No, it means you’re going to walk on new ground.”
“You got all of that out of an itching foot?”
“It’s just something my mother has always said. She got it from her mother, I think.”
“Okay, well, whatever. Just take me with you. Now, back to what I know. Of course I know. My mother’s been out there with your mother all day. But you just need to get it off your chest.
That’s the only way you will heal.”
“The only way I will heal is to leave town and change my name to Villamina Venzinhoffer.”
“Oh, that wouldn’t attract any attention, now, would it? So, your mother’s getting a little attention . . .”
“A little? Have you been down there?”
“Actually, I couldn’t get through the crowd, but she’ll be home by evening. I mean, do you honestly think Miss One-Thousand-Dollar-Suit, Never-Let-Them-See-You-Without-Your-Makeup Woman is going to spend the night outside?”
“Well, Dad said he was taking her dinner . What do you think she’s going to do?”
“I think he’ll take her dinner and she’ll give the evening shift to some poor soul from the Savannah College of Art and Design, along with a crisp hundred-dollar bill and the promise of a great job upon graduation.”
“You’re absolutely right.” I sat up straight on the sofa . This revelation gave me the desire to pace and talk.“Victoria Phillips would never spend the night outside . That lady’s idea of camping is a two-star hotel. Shoot, I remember—well, you know, how she takes her own sheets to hotels, Miss Has-Sheets-Will-Travel.”
Paige rolled her eyes. “Yes, because of the 20/20 episode on hotels and gyms. I totally know.”
“Well, a couple of weeks ago, she went out of state to judge a pageant, and apparently the hotel was more like,well, like a motel.”
She crinkled her nose.“Oh, don’t tell me . The doors were on the outside.”
“Yes, sweet sister . The only door on the inside led to the toilet.”
“You mean she didn’t pack her bags and pay for her own hotel somewhere else?”
“The only other place in town was where the contestants were. So she had no option but to leave. And we are talking beauty pageant here.”
“Oh, how silly of me. Please continue. But sit down. I can’t stand it when you pace or clean.”
I sat back down on the sofa and used my hands to continue my story.“Well, apparently she put her sheets on the bed.”
“The five-hundred-dollar set?”
“Are there others? And she slept with a light on all night. In case of bugs.”
“Bugs?”
“Yeah, didn’t you hear about her friend Cyndi?”
“Cyndi who?”
“You know, Cyndi who found that tick in her ear.”
“No way! That is sick!” She shivered as if she had the chills.“Do not tell me any more about that. Just get back to your mother.”
“Well,Vicky is petrified something’s going to crawl in her ear at night.”
“Stop!” She made a gagging sound.
“Yeah, isn’t it? Anyway, she puts her sheets on the bed, only to hardly sleep because of the tick thing.” I snicker now. “Then, for three straight days she doesn’t even let the cleaning ladies in. But, on the fourth day—”
“Oh, Lord, what happened on the fourth day?”
“She forgot to put the ‘Do Not Disturb’ hanger on the door.”
“I’m taking it she got disturbed.”
“Honey, when she got back they had made her bed and thrown her sheets in a wadded up pile on the sofa.”
“Ew, the sofa.”
“Yep, where behinds have sat for centuries.”
“Did she wash them?”
“Honey, she threw them away and made them take her to a store so she could buy new ones. She said they were totally unsalvageable.”
“And you think this woman would spend the night, outside, on hard concrete, where any kind of bug imaginable could crawl in her ear? Well, you aren’t thinking clearly.”
The doorbell rang and Paige retrieved our pizza. I followed her to her galley kitchen to prepare our feast.“You’re right . What was I thinking?”
“Obviously not much. Here, eat.”With that, we devoured our pizza and chattered about endless nothings. She told me all about her new coffee table, who made it, how it was made, and we created a fabulous layout for my nonexistent furniture, for my yet-to-be-mine apartment.
Then she talked about the cute boy who moved in down the hall. She didn’t know his name but she had deciphered his cologne. Even though we were supposed to have sworn off men, she had never been very good at resisting tan legs and white smiles.
I walked home enjoying the still warmth of a spring evening. After pizza and Coke, life seemed . . . well, just plain okay.
CHAPTER FOUR
Pulling the covers from my head and hugging my pillow, I looked out the window to see what action Abercorn held this morning. Not much. A few joggers passed, tugging at me to join them. As I washed my face, the silence caught my attention. Eight a.m. on a Saturday in the Phillips’s house usually boasted far more activity than seemed to be developing this morning.
My sneakered feet walked out of my bedroom and stopped on the landing. The bed was made in Mom and Dad’s bedroom. Nothing new. Vicky never left her bed unmade. She blames the habit on one unforgettable experience before she married when she left her apartment messy and the maintenance guy saw her underwear on the floor.
“So, Savannah, whatever you do, always pick up your panties, always make your bed, and don’t call strangers to come fix your toilet.”
I can honestly say, in all my life adventures, those three occurrences have never run in tandem.
No ling
ering smell of chocolate gravy and homemade biscuits lured me to the kitchen. For a moment that fear of ages past gripped me. It first captured me around eight years of age, the fear that the Rapture has taken place and I alone inhabit the world. I had searched the house and yard desperately but found no one. My recent dip into the Left Behind series only increased that fear. This morning, I stifled the desire to scream loudly or run up and down the street, knocking on the doors of the most holy people I knew.
Somehow my heart steadied itself and made its way out the front door for a jog and some tilling time. My iPod played my CeCe Winans library. About halfway up Bull Street toward Forsythe Park, Granny Daniels, one of the godliest ladies I know, came walking out of her house right into my path. I stopped right in front of her. Grabbed her with both arms and gave her a big ol’ bear hug.
“So good to see you this morning, Granny Daniels.”
Trying to catch her breath from my assault, she grabbed her chest.“Well, Savannah,my Lord, child, you look like the Rapture’s come and you’re the only one left.”
“Oh, that’s funny!” I said through my nervous laughter of relief.“Wouldn’t that be awful?”
She extricated herself from my hold and started walking up the street.“Tell your parents hello for me.”
“I will. See ya tomorrow.” The heaviness of my trepidation lifted, and I increased my pace . The smell of mothballs stayed with me long after Granny Daniels left. I’ve never been certain why she smells like them so, though rumor has it she heard they kept snakes away. As far as I know, not many snakes make their way up to the homes of Savannah. Mothballs would be my weapon of choice, however, if I knew they would keep water bugs away. I stared at the ones on the sidewalk, struck down by morning joggers.
The smell of mothballs makes its way into just about everything that comes out of Granny Daniels’s house. She once fixed us a big ol’ pot of fresh garden-picked butter beans, and Vicky threw them out, because they, too, smelled like mothballs.
And like her odor, her authenticity is just as impossible to miss.
You can hear it in the prayers she prays when you sit in front of her at church. Or see it in the weathered Bible that rests on the table by her weathered recliner. But it shows most vibrantly in her letters, which go out at graduations and weddings.
Mine arrived on a Sunday. She slipped it into my palm with a “piece of money,” as she liked to call it. She let me know her prayers had followed my mother and father “everywhere they have ever been” and that me and Thomas were in her prayers too. Then she reminded me that there was a “work” for me to do, and that I needed to “live humble and never let pride have no place in your heart.”
Then she apologized for her handwriting and asked me to pray for her. So today, I remembered and did some tilling time for Granny Daniels too.
Tilling time is my time to pray, reflect, and listen. I set aside the first moments of the day to get my mind (or soil, as Pastor Brice defined it) focused on an eternal perspective in a temporary world. Duke and I usually till together . Well, to be honest, God alone knows what Duke thinks about while we jog, except I can say he’s a hard one to hold when any four-legged female passes by. But Dad must have taken him this morning.
So, between my conversation with Paige and my run-in with Granny Daniels,my steps seemed lighter . Today was bound to be a lovely May day.
I paused a moment on a park bench to enjoy the stillness of the dissipating spring. A ball flew through the air and caught my attention. Joshua. But he wasn’t alone. He was accompanied by a beautiful golden retriever.
He never told me he had a dog.
Come to think of it, he’s never told me much of anything.
I watched as the boy and his dog played catch. Joshua hardly stopped laughing as he called out to “Shelby,” who was clearly a girl. It’s not hard to tell these things . They played . They tumbled. I spied. It was weird. I felt like an intruder. But I couldn’t turn my gaze . Then I watched in amazement as he held up his finger at that dog and yelled “Bang!” and she fell right to the ground like she was dead. Then she high-fived him. But the be-all and end-all was when he turned his back and that dog grabbed his leg with her paw and tripped that grown man.
Unbelievable.
Well, Duke ain’t worth much compared to that. All he does is chase a ball and lie around waiting for food to fall from the counter or ice to fall from the ice maker.
I didn’t know he had a dog. He knew my dog . Then, he and Shelby packed up and headed home. I watched. Shameless, I know, but I did it anyway.
I love to walk the streets of Savannah, and the day was too flawless to drive for my morning fix. After a shower I grabbed a book and headed for Dad’s shop, which harbored my McDonald’s Coke machine. Dad had it installed for me shortly after the cheerless discovery that no McDonald’s existed in the Historical District.
The enjoyable route to Jake’s runs up Abercorn Street past Lafayette Square (which holds the Hamilton Turner Inn), then past the Colonial Park Cemetery (which holds a few Hamiltons and Turners itself, I’m sure). I don’t hang out there much; sister don’t do dead people. So usually I hang a left at West Harris and then a right on Bull, which deposits me at Wright Square with York Street and State Street completing the four corners.
It’s amazing how a place you know so well feels so excitingly new some mornings. Even though I’ve passed the same antique stores, women’s clothing stores, restaurants, and corner cafés probably a million times through the years, some days the city just feels different. New, fresh . . . dare I say inspiring? Today felt that way. At least it did until I passed Bull and realized things were, new, fresh, and definitely inspiring to someone . Wright Square was as active this morning as it was yesterday.
Crossing York Street, I couldn’t see Mother, even though I was certain she was there. She probably started her day off with coffee at Dad’s and then wandered back to relieve the pitiable creature who endured the elements of the evening. I crossed to the opposite side of the square in front of the Chatham County Legislative Offices because it kept me away from the fray.
I gazed up at the two iron banisters flanking the French doors to my apartment above Dad’s store and assured her it wouldn’t be long ’til Mama was home. One more paycheck, one simple conversation with Vicky, and it would be mine. I entered Jake’s through the back door so I could get straight to the Coke machine.
Louise and Mervine, the two twins who had worked with Dad since the day he opened eleven years ago, had their backs to me as I entered . They came out of retirement “because your dad was so sweet and cute,” they confessed. In fact, all of Dad’s employees have worked with him since he opened. Never lost a one.
Oh, well, there was that one.
When Dad first opened Jake’s, Mother decided she would be the hostess. Dad assured her a coffee shop didn’t need a hostess. She assured him it did. She lasted four and a half days. She was fired with these words: “Lady Wisdom builds a lovely home; Lady Fool comes along and tears it down brick by brick.”
I think it was the fool part that got her. She grabbed her Louis Vuitton satchel, because we all know you need one to be the hostess at a coffee shop, and the entire place held their breath until the clicking of her Stuart Weitzman heels could no longer be heard from the other side of the square. Remarkably, the place didn’t fall apart.
“What are you two doing?”
“That crazy man hasn’t gotten here with the dishwasher yet,” Louise said, swinging her head around and wiping her face with a suds-covered hand.
I fixed a cup of ice and poured a Coke. Duke ran to my side, chomping at the pieces of ice that fell. “I’ll deal with you later.” I wagged a finger at him then turned my attention to the Madge wannabes up to their elbows in Palmolive.“I thought Mr. Ron was bringing the dishwasher this morning.”
“So did we. But all we’ve got is a hole.” She pointed to the space where the machine used to be. “So, you’re looking at the dishwashers.” M
ervine just looked up and smiled.
“Well, maybe he’ll be here shortly.”
“I’m sure he will, or I’ll hunt him down and strap his behind to this sink.”
I gave them each a kiss and headed to the front. Richard greeted me with a wink as his black eyes did their customary dance. His dark hand extended a refill to the customer who sat at the window.
Duke returned to me affectionately with his wet mouth.“Give me a high-five, Duke.” I grabbed his paw and lifted it to touch my palm. He jerked his leg from my grip.
Dad laughed. “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Don’t you know that?”
“Well, I’m going to. Duke can’t do jack.” I patted his cute but uneducated head. “You should have taught him how to do more than just retrieve people’s trash and chase a ball.”
“What else does he need to know?”
“Something more than he does, that’s all I know. And you could have left him with me this morning. I would have brought him in.”
“Oh, well, we’ve been here all night.” Dad poured some coffee for a kid on the other side of the counter who looked too young to be drinking coffee.
I walked over and set my latest reading material down on top of the granite. It would take a good afternoon to be finished with Peggy Noonan’s book on Ronald Reagan, When Character Was King. Duke followed me to the counter,walking more slowly than usual, as if his night might have been better spent with me.
“What do you mean we’ve been here all night?”
Dad returned the coffeepot to its warmer. “I mean, I wasn’t going to let your mother sleep outside by herself.”
I started laughing and slapped the counter.“Oh, you’re good. You had me going there for a minute. But you weren’t thinking when you added the mother-slept-outside part.”
“Think what you will Savannah, but she did. And so did I. And so did Duke. Didn’t you, Duke?”
Duke looked up at him, tucking his tail between his legs and scrunching closer to my chair . Maybe he wasn’t completely stupid after all. I mean, the poor creature was forced to spend the night outside with a woman who loathes him because he’s not a lapdog named Magnolia.
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