“Wished you’d stayed with me, huh?” His tail wagged as he looked up in acknowledgment of his great error. I turned my attention back to my Dad.“And what did you sleep on, may I ask?”
He headed back into the back room.“You may, and I brought sleeping bags.”
“You are too much. So,Victoria Phillips, theVictoria Phillips, former Miss Georgia United States of America, head of the Chamber of Commerce turned City of Savannah Diva, spent the night, outside, in a sleeping bag, with no way to take a bath, redo her makeup, or change her clothes. And you think I’m going to believe that?”
“Go see for yourself.”
“I will. I’ll just go see for myself. Come on, Duke.”We headed outside to peer across the square. He was reluctant but came when he realized my arms were free of sleeping paraphernalia. It was necessary to move in closer because my petite mother was easily swallowed whole by the crowd, which was definitely larger than yesterday’s. People sat around talking; reporters stood in front of cameras . We stopped to watch a kid too young to drink coffee take his place in front of a news camera to deliver the latest information.
“Standing here in front of the United States Courthouse on Wright Square, in the heart of Savannah,we are waiting on the latest order to be issued from the federal courts on whether this monument, like many before, and I’m certain many after, will get to stay or have to go. At the center of this case is a federal judge by the name of Judge Hoddicks. He brought in the structure late Thursday afternoon, after most courts were closed and people were headed home from work. He is fighting this on the legal end, and Victoria Phillips, the head of the Savannah Chamber of Commerce, is fighting this on the human-rights end along with hundreds of other crusaders. She has been here all night. Many others have gone home to shower and return to work, but she remains, looking exceptionally fresh, I might add. And totally capable of staying until this battle goes one way or the other .Now back to you, Sarah, in the studio.”
The camera quit rolling and he plopped down in the grass and took a long swig of his coffee.“Why do I always get the gigs where you have to stay outside?” he asked his cameraman.
About that time the people parted enough for me to catch a glimpse of my mother. She sat on a rolled-up sleeping bag in the same blue suit she had had on yesterday.
At no time in my twenty-four years had I ever, until that exact moment, seen Vicky in the same outfit two days in a row.
Trying to stand back among the others, not wanting her to see me, I observed that she did look exceptionally well for having spent the evening outside. I managed to spot a small stain on the bottom left-hand side of her jacket, and her makeup looked a little tired, but her hair was perfectly fixed. But if she stayed here much longer her hair would probably start to look more like her outfit. I wouldn’t put it past her to change her hair to match her outfit, even though she’d become a tad more cautious since the hair-breakage-on-the-pillow incident.
She was talking to Sergeant Millings. And he didn’t look really happy. Nothing new. He always looked rather constipated. Of course, he was afraid of my mother. Weird, as she was always exceptionally nice to him, in spite of his customary ability to annoy. Maybe the oddity of niceness was enough to freak out the former Sears security guard.
He stood there, legs spread, one hand on gun, free hand on hip. That stance shouldn’t be allowed in public. He was letting her know something clearly and adamantly, until a rather looming federal agent who stepped out of the courthouse tapped him on the shoulder.
“You have no jurisdiction here.”The federal agent’s booming voice carried all the way to my ears.
“This sidewalk is my responsibility, young fella.” I was glad Sergeant Millings hadn’t called the six-foot-six man “little fella.”
“No sir . We’re in front of a federal building, which makes this my jurisdiction.”
Mr. Looloo would not give up. “I’ll have you know that this sidewalk has been a part of my jurisdiction since before you could spell ‘bubba.’ So, either you go back inside that courthouse or I’ll be seeing you in court.”
“I think you should remember that the courthouse is my jurisdiction too.”
“Are you threatening me?” Sergeant Millings asked, hand shifting on his gun. A few gawkers stepped back.
“You need to take your hand off your gun, sir .Now.”
He shifted his hand casually to his belt buckle, as if it were all his idea. “I’ll have you know I’ve already issued Mrs. Phillips here an Order to Disperse.”
“You have not!” Mother protested.
Millings pulled out a notepad. Scribbled on it. Ripped it out and handed it to my mother. “I have now.” She refused to take it.“Not taking it, Mrs. Phillips, doesn’t change the fact that it’s an order.”
“Wanna bet?”
The federal agent reentered the conversation.“Sergeant Millings, why don’t you and I go have a talk with Judge Hoddicks and see what we can come up with.”
“We’ll go talk to whoever we need to, sonny, to get you off my sidewalk.” He turned his attention back to my mother.“You have until Friday,Mrs. Phillips. If you’re not out of here by Friday at five p.m., I will cart you off to jail.”
Mother stared a hole into him, causing him to back into the federal agent, who pushed him back toward my mother. I just prayed she wasn’t within reach of his gun.
CHAPTER FIVE
Come on, Duke. Let’s get out of here.” Duke turned himself around, appreciating that he wasn’t going to have to spend the afternoon sleeping on sun-soaked concrete too. As I turned around in a bit of a hurry, an exotic-looking beauty careened into my shoulder, spinning me around.
“Oh, excuse me,” she said, turning around to make sure I was okay.
“Sorry, I didn’t see you.” She wasn’t from around here. Her accent was Southern, but her look was metropolitan, classy, almost L. A.-like. I tried not to stare, but her long black hair, pulled back into a sleek ponytail, made her striking features and light brown eyes stand out even more. Her flawless olive skin had probably never needed a bottle of “Tan Perfect,” the new tanning regimen for the scaredy-cats of Savannah.
She just nodded and continued up the steps of the courthouse, perfection slipping through the glass-and-gold antiqued doors. Her all-black attire was exceptionally odd for a Southern spring. But there wasn’t much room in my closet for criticism. Until two weeks ago, about the only color I possessed came from the lone red blouse my mother bought me six years earlier for one of her memorable Christmas parties. I might have done red, but this lovely blouse was adorned by enough layers of ruffles around the neck to cover my face to my hairline. Red has never since adorned my body.
The heat of the afternoon encroached on the countless souls forced to take cover under umbrellas or live oak trees with their Spanish moss. Mother, however, was exposed to the elements . The grand hall of justice would not shield her from the sun until late afternoon. She raised her umbrella, which matched her Kate Spade handbag and shoes.
“Duke, we need another Coke. And I’m going to teach you how to get your own ice.” He agreed and led the way to safety.
Richard was cleaning off the two front tables when I entered.“Those people are crazy out there . That’s a three-ring circus,” I declared.
“Now, Savannah, those are people doing somethin’ they believe in . You ought not be callin’ them crazy.” His gray hairs glistened in the sun that streamed through the front window.
I continued my walk to the back and the fountain of sanity. “Whatever you say. But it looks like craziness to me.”
Duke and I took a moment to gather ourselves. I grabbed his paw and used it to slap the ice dispenser attached to my Coke machine. Ice cubes fell to the ground and he ran off with them. I sighed. So easily sidetracked . We would work on his focus later.
A rather loud, Southern female voice distracted me from Duke. I peered through the slats in the swinging door to see who had entered Jake’s. Duke, who put aw
ay the ice in one swallow, resumed residence beside me.
“I’ll have a double espresso, please.” She offered my father a smile . The corners of her mouth barely moved. And her eyebrows may as well have been paralyzed. She was a BOTOX butcher block.
“Sorry, young lady, but we just serve regular old coffee.”
“Just coffee?” She snickered. Her snicker seemed rather contrived, not to mention unnecessary.“Are you serious?”
“Yes, ma’am, I am . We just keep it simple around here. But I promise you whether you like decaf or the real stuff, you won’t get any better anywhere else.”
“Well, I don’t have time to go anywhere else. So just give me a large of the regular.”
Jake turned around to pour the stranger a cup of his magic.“It will be my pleasure.”
About that time Duke let out a growl. I had not heard Duke growl since Vicky made him get out of one of the chairs at the dining-room table.“Duke, chill . We’ll go out there in a minute.”
BOTOX lady carried on for ten more minutes, sipping and drinking and talking and putting her hand up against her bosom like some dainty Southerner. And touching my father no fewer than ten annoying times. He tried to be polite. He always was.
She revealed she worked for one of the national affiliates and was there to report the events at the courthouse. On her way to the door she turned around to flash Dad a vavoom smile half a dozen times—and with all that collagen, those lips took up half her face. But Duke and I had a moment of satisfaction when she ran smack-dab into the half-open door as my raven-haired stranger entered.
“May I have a decaf, please? Black, no sugar.” A lady who appreciated the simple things in life. I liked that. She stood there so elegant and ladylike. It’s not that we don’t have ladies or elegance in Savannah. It’s just most of the time they’re adorned with linen and heavy perfume. But she was different, understated, Southern, and by all appearances important. I looked at the bracelet on her right wrist and noticed it was just like the David Yurman bracelet I had been given for graduation. She also had a matching ring on her right ring finger. Nothing on her left hand.
The board above Dad’s head caught her attention as she sat her monogrammed leather satchel on the counter to retrieve her money. “What is that?”
He placed her coffee on the counter. “Oh, that’s just a little board where I post a thought for the day. Gives everybody a little something to reflect on before they get started.”
“Sounds like a religious saying. ‘Keep mercy and truth with you always . Wear them as a necklace, write them on your heart. They will keep you respected by both God and man.’ Lot of that going on around here, huh?”
“Where are you from?’
“Atlanta.”
“Oh, I used to live in Atlanta.”
I looked down at Duke, whose expression was still sour, for a golden retriever.“What is your problem, Duke?” He answered with another rather nasty growl.
“You lived in Atlanta?”
“Yeah, owned a company there but got tired of the pace. Moved here to slow down and learn how to enjoy living.” He leaned on the counter.“What brings you here to Savannah?”
“Oh, I’m here to represent the voice of the people over this monument issue. I represented the last controversy in Jackson, Mississippi, and was asked to handle this one.”
“I knew she was important,” I said, slapping Duke on the head. I think he might have snarled at me.“Lighten up, old boy . How old do you think she is? Early thirties? Wonder what the A stands for on her bag?” Duke crouched as if ready to pounce.
“What voice do you represent exactly?” Dad asked.
“I work for the ACLU. But I won’t be here long . The courts will have that thing out of here by the first of the week.” She took a drink of her coffee. I caught a glimpse of her expression as the first swallow went down. Sheer satisfaction.
“Well, I hope you find what you’re looking for.” Dad pushed off the counter and gave her change.
She put it in her pocket and headed for the door. “Just looking for justice.”
“Just find you a little truth in your justice,” he said about the time her hand caught the handle of the door. I could see her turn around and stare at this new stranger . Then she walked out.
Duke and I came around the corner after the sounds of the bell announcing entrances and exits ceased. I took a stool at the counter, and Duke managed to pull himself up and balance precariously on the one next to me.“Neat lady, huh?”
“Yeah, I’m sure she is. Probably a lot like you. A young woman trying to do her job and figure out what she believes.”
“Seems like she knows what she believes. Looks like she has a pretty good job too . Those bags aren’t cheap.”
“Well, after you work at your job for a while, you can afford nice bags too.” He wiped off the counter.
“She liked your coffee.”
He laughed.“You noticed that, huh?”
“It was written all over her face . That was the best-tasting stuff she’s ever had.”
“I know. I could tell.”
“Now for the other character. You should lock your doors next time.”
“She won’t be back. She likes espressos.”
“No way, champ. She’ll be back. She likes Jake. Plus, she’s so processed, the shock of something unprocessed will send her into a tailspin.”
“You need to quit the name-calling. And your mother wants to know why you haven’t been out there to see her.” He prepared more coffee, for tired, hot people who were too addicted to realize that they should be drinking cold drinks in the eclipsing spring.
I turned my stool around to gaze out the front window and watch the action across the street. “Dad, I don’t want to go out there. No one needs me in the middle of that.”
“No one has asked you to get in the middle of anything. But you could at least go tell your mother hello.”
“You and I both know if I go over there to tell her hello, I’m going to end up on the front page somehow as the cause of this entire episode.”
“No, she already made the front page of today’s paper.”
I raised my right eyebrow and turned to stare at him. “Why would I have doubted?”
“Anyway, this is about more than a person, Savannah. One day you’ll realize that. So get over yourself and learn from the book you’re reading and go tell your mother hello. And that is coming from your father. Now, go.”
“Wouldn’t you like us to go look at my apartment first? You know, just kind of get an idea about what kind of furniture I might need.”
“You don’t have any money to get any furniture.”
“Yes I do. I got paid yesterday.”
“Well, I see your new apartment every day when I come to work, and I doubt one paycheck is going to get you moved in. But you haven’t talked to your mother since yesterday. Now, get, and don’t come back until you’ve seen her.”
“I’m way too old to be scolded.”
His right eyebrow mirrored mine.“You’re way too old to need to be scolded.”
“Well, huh! Let’s go, Duke.” Picking my book up off the counter, I pointed my dejected soul for the door, and the second soul wagged his tail the entire way.
“Duke, you’re staying here,” Dad called out to his loyal companion. So my dejected soul headed to the door alone, and the second dejected soul flung himself to the cold, hard concrete of his coffee-covered world.
CHAPTER SIX
Sheila Long, Paige’s mother, stopped by Vicky’s latest residence. Dropped in to say hello, I suppose. I stared across the square and watched as my mother pulled a tissue out of her purse and wiped off an area of the sidewalk for Sheila to sit down.
I knew perfectly well that this tissue had been wadded in her purse, probably since last Sunday at church. It’s what she always does. And she always says, “It’s clean.”
How a wadded-up tissue in the bottom of a woman’s purse can be considered
clean is beyond me. But apparently Sheila fell for it, because she sat down beside Vicky.
Since Mother had a visitor and it was way too early in this beautiful day to throw myself into her world of chaos, I decided to eat. Dad wouldn’t be home until evening, if then, so it seemed the perfect opportunity to delay obedience. I would obey eventually. Now just didn’t feel like the right time. It felt more like teatime.
Saturdays are perfect days for tea. Even though afternoon tea in Savannah is left mostly to tourists and dainty Southern women, I continue to enjoy it. A yearning for hot tea accompanied by crab cakes led me to the Gryphon Tea Room by way of Paige’s. And no, hot tea and coffee are not the same.
I walked into Paige’s small studio behind her parents’ antique store across from St. John’s Cathedral on Abercorn Street. She was wrapping up a painting for a miserably attired elderly couple. One vintage tourist had bejeweled herself with enough baubles for a family of four, and her companion had inadvertently, or maybe not, forgotten the no-white-knee-socks-with-walking-shorts-and-Florsheim-shoes rule. He smelled of an Old Spice train wreck and she looked as if she’d allowed a three-year-old to apply her blue eye shadow.
Paige slipped the sweet-looking gentleman his receipt, and he tried to insert it into his stitched-shut back pocket. He gave up after several attempts and stuffed it into his front pocket. His wife had similar struggles with her white vinyl bag, whose screw-in clasp didn’t want to screw. By the time they were both through, I do believe they were winded.
Yet the wind continued to blow. They talked loud and long, and Paige loved every minute of it . Truth be known, she just liked old people. If all else failed for her, she would start a chain of nursing homes. She would teach the art classes. But she was totally perfect for this setting. She was lively enough to attract all kinds, down-to-earth enough to make them comfortable, and talkative enough to keep them entertained. The colorful duo left totally thrilled with their new purchase.
“Do you smell that?”
She sniffed the air.“Smell what?”
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