“I’m just frustrated.”
She turned to look at me with her deep brown eyes. I had no question a theological revelation was on the horizon. But she paused extra long. Her eyes looked past me, through me, as if she was remembering something. Her own experience. Her own moment.
“Miss Joy, you okay?”
Her eyes registered with mine once again.“Oh yeah, baby, just thinking.”
“Thinking what?”
She stood up and tugged at her skirt to try to get it to come down from where it had bunched around her waist. Then she tugged at her stockings uselessly.“Thinking I probably need to go.”
“Oh, well, okay. I guess I’ll just see you later.”
She stopped. Her gaze went up the street and stuck on something that was probably invisible to those of us in this world.“Parents, Savannah, don’t always make the right decisions. But they make the best decisions they know. And at the end of the day, the choice is 469 yours to honor them or not. But don’t forget that every choice has a consequence, be it good or bad.”
As if her other realm dissipated, she turned her gaze back to me. “A lot of people waste time being angry when anger affords no results . Your mother’s not trying to hurt you, Savannah. She’s trying to rescue you. That’s what good parents do; they rescue. They rescue their children’s futures. They rescue their children’s heritage . They rescue their children’s hopes . They don’t always do it in the way you think is best. But they do it the best they know.”
She left me there on that park bench as confused as I was when I left Mr. Hicks’s office. She waddled through the square, humming that familiar tune, the one that was now officially driving me crazy because I couldn’t place it. She patted people’s heads as she went, each person lighting up when they saw her. By the time she disappeared up the street, she had been given a 16-ounce Coca-Cola, what appeared to be a sandwich, and an entire bag of Doritos. If Paige spotted her, Joy would be the one having to share her dinner this evening.
Sometime during my conversation with Joy, Emma had slipped away. Not that it mattered; I had already forgotten her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The sea parted long enough for me to catch a glimpse of my mother. Poor thing was looking downright pitiful. Surely if she had any real idea of her present state of disgrace, she would be hiding behind the boulder instead of displaying herself in front of it. She stood there with her hair having been haphazardly brushed out and standing on end. Even from this far away I could see her mascara.
Her blue suit would probably have to be burned after this incident. Miss Savannah United States of America, one Amber Topaz,was at her side, posing for the cameras. She was looking exceptionally fabulous in a black strapless sundress with a white ribbon around the waist. Her golden tresses cascaded down her shoulders from a matching ribbon headband. As I stared at the two of them, it was hard not to wonder if maybe they should have been mother and daughter. After all, they both loved pageants, accessories, and high heels.
Clearly, that didn’t work for me. In fact, pageants had never worked for me. Amazing enough since they had once been the core of my mother’s world. I boycotted pageants effectively for over ten years until last week, when Amber invited me to one. I was working on a story that made the pageant a mandatory affliction. Had it not been for that, I would still be on a pageant “fast” as I called it.
The fast began at the age of fourteen, after my mother’s attempt to get me to be a part of the “pageant system” as it is identified by anyone who knows a thing about them at all . The mere shock of it forged in me a fear of anything that sparkles, a fear that still pretty much exists to this day.
It was a Victoria and Savannah “date week.” I should have boycotted. I should have feigned a seizure right there in the middle of the marble-covered foyer. But Vicky would have called a paramedic and delivered me to the pageant à la ambulance, via stretcher. She’d have propped me up with a drip if necessary. But either I was going to a weeklong pageant, or I was going to be grounded from Coca-Cola for the week. I figured, how long could a week be? Had I known, I would have sacrificed Cokes for a month.
She sat me on the front row and she wore her tiara. I won’t even tell you the battle that precipitated that final outcome. But the curtain opened that first night with the “Salute to Broadway” serenade, and the reigning queen belted out the song “One” from A Chorus Line while somebody’s fishnet-stocking-covered leg kept kicking out from the side curtain . Well, a person would rather have her toenails pulled out with pliers.
“How long does this last?”
She elbowed me. “Sit back and enjoy, Savannah.” Then she sang along and beamed from ear to ear.
“What is that?” I asked in horror as the two grown men came out from each side of the stage and sang Don Quixote’s “Man from La Mancha.” Just imagine Rick and Bubba doing such, and you pretty well get the picture. Except one poor soul had a hairpiece that he should have sued over. They were joined by two old women. Well, at fourteen, forty is old. And they all sang in unison until the final note . When they gave a downright unfortunate attempt at four- part harmony, I decided they should have just kept that puppy unison the whole way through.
“You should ask for your money back,” I told my mother.
“You should act like a duchess and keep your mouth closed if you can’t be nice.”
I thought that was nice. Far nicer than what I had been thinking anyway.
Each contestant began to introduce herself. One child seemed to crack herself up just by saying her own name.
“Do they think we’re deaf?” I asked as each passing participant screamed into the microphone above their head.“Look like a bunch of strained-neck whooping cranes, if you ask me.”
“I didn’t.”
For an entire week I endured swimsuit competition, talent presentation, and evening gown. Some women with thighs the size of Georgia pranced around as if they were Tinkerbell. I was certain the stage was shaking.
Talent presentation took the cake.
“Does she know she’s tone-deaf?” I asked the pageant professional seated next to me.
“It’s the monitors,” she assured me.
“Ooh, whoa, girl,” I almost hollered as a tap dancer turned one time too many and about ended up tapping via her backside.
The operatic aria, in Italian I presumed, offered more fodder. “You do realize she could be singing pig latin for all we know.”
Mother looked at me incredulously.“No, she couldn’t, Savannah. Because I know pig latin.”
When the violinist took the stage and played a number that I’m sure the original composer never intended to be interpreted in such a way, I couldn’t help but ask,“Can you hear her?”
“Oh, yes. Isn’t it amazing? She just started two weeks ago.”
“Ya think?”
The poor emcee, a local news personality, introduced each contestant like a Southern gospel preacher. “And-a ladies and gentlemen-a, please welcome-a,The Very Golden-a, Miss Golden Highway-a!”
But when Miss Upper Georgia took the microphone and tried to sing like Whitney Houston, I had to squint from the pain. About downright scraped the leather off the armrests of my chair.“Please tell me it will be over soon.”
“Not soon enough.” Even Vicky had had enough by evening three, for a totally different reason, I assure you.
I watched, drugged, the final night. And I do mean drugged. I laid in bed all day, moaning in agony, sheer agony. Agony from the knowledge that I had to endure yet another evening. Mother gave me half a Valium . That and the revelation that this would be it gave me the fortitude to endure.
After the top ten were announced, I was certain that beauty contestants and flight attendants went to the same school.
“Where do you learn that?” I quizzed.
She wouldn’t even respond to me. But when it came to the final onstage question, Sister Savannah came to her apex. Even though I was half-comatose, I was a
ware that Miss Merry Christmas had taken the stage in a rather bright red and green ensemble.
“Miss Merry Christmas-a,” the evangelist asked, “do you-a think-a women who have been abused-a are better suited to speak out about domestic-a violence-a than women who haven’t-a?”
Well, nothing could hold me back. From my front-row seat, I jumped to my feet, and you would have thought I was in the parade of contestants myself as loud as I got.
“You have got to be kidding me!” I screamed, throwing my hands up to slap my own head.
Vicky reacted immediately. She threw her hand across my mouth, but I was ready for a fight, and this one she would not win. “Yes, genius! I want a woman to be beaten, just so she can be better qualified to speak out against domestic violence! And that’s what it’s called—‘domestic violence,’ not ‘domestic-a, violenc-a!’”
I left freely and waited in the foyer. I do believe Mother crawled out underneath the chairs during the final song, when the Rick (or was it Bubba?) impersonator came out donned in a multilayered crinoline evening gown and blond curly wig as Glenda the Good Witch from The Wizard of Oz. It was the beard that gave him away . We didn’t speak for a week. But I was eternally relieved of all pageant-going responsibilities.
The chamber of commerce is the sponsor of the Miss Savannah United States of America Pageant. This could be the very reason Vicky wanted to be the head of the chamber.Even now she attends every summer with the reigning queen for two solid weeks.
She always invites us to join her. But who would forfeit two weeks of sheer pleasure? Junk food! Unmade beds! Late-night movies! Duke sleeps on Victoria’s side of the bed. I even try to get Dad to put Duke in Vicky’s Jacuzzi tub. Give the dog some real enjoyment. But Dad didn’t want dog hair to come flying out of the jets during Mother’s next soak, so he refused. Duke abhors Vicky’s return. She even has to fight him a couple good evenings to rescue her pillow from him. Usually, after she threatens to buy a cat, the poor thing takes a dump in her slippers and gives her her bed back.
Secretly though, I know she pines for someone who would enjoy her world of whipping with her. Whipping is the coined phrase for what those girls do when they turn themselves around so the judges can catch them from all sides .Now, staring at her and Amber Topaz Childers, the reigning Miss Savannah United States of America, I was certain that Amber would have made a much more suitable daughter.
“Vanni, looks like you’re thinking too hard,” Thomas said as he kissed me on the cheek.
He was the lucky one. The one who escaped being named George. Mother wanted to introduce him as “My son George from Georgia,” but Dad saved him from such a fate by naming him after himself, Thomas Jake Phillips II. So, he failed to deliver me from my curse, but going through life as a girl named Tommy probably wouldn’t have made my life much better anyway.
“No, just remembering.” I said wiping off the perspiration the mere memory had caused. “I didn’t even see you.”
“I could tell. Ooh, you look like you’ve been trampled.” He ran his hand through his lengthening hair. Every summer away from the hallowed halls of the Citadel,Thomas would grow out his hair and refuse to cut it all summer . Then football camp came, and bye-bye went the mop.
“Thank you. You look nice yourself.” I stared at his frayed khaki cut-offs and his wrinkled T-shirt bearing the face of one Mr.Rogers asking,‘Won’t you be my neighbor?’
He motioned to the rowdy protestors and asked,“Did they do this to you?”
“No . They are not to blame for these smudges. So where are you sleeping tonight? On the left or the right?”
He sat down on the stool beside me. “Oh, I’m sleeping at home tonight . That concrete is killing me.” He rubbed his pained areas. “And I hear Amber’s sleeping out there, and the last thing I want is a slumber party with that girl.”
I laughed.“Well, you haven’t totally gone mad then, have you?”
“So how about I have dinner with my sister tonight?”
I stood up to head back to my car.“I would like that.”
He got up to follow me.“Would you mind changing first? You might embarrass me.”
“Oh, I’m sure that would happen.” I laughed. He wrapped his arm around me and walked with me to my car. “Oh, did I mention I’m moving this week?”
He laughed.“You are either extremely brave or extremely crazy.”
“Do I get to choose which?”
“What bank did you rob?”
“I didn’t rob a bank, just borrowed from one.”
“Dad?”
“Now who’s crazy?”
“Paige?”
“It’s none of your business. But I figure if I’m going to starve, I may as well starve in my own house.”
He opened my door for me and headed around to the other side of the car.“You could learn how to cook yourself.”
“Yes, I could.” And that was the end of that conversation.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Bistro Savannah would feed me tonight. I was thankful. We walked into the quaint atmosphere of the bistro on West Congress Street. Thomas wanted to come here because he had just gotten paid. And every good-ol’American boy wants a steak on payday. So where else would we go but the restaurant that was voted “Georgia’s #1 seafood restaurant” by the Zagat Survey. Rest assured, they do steaks as well as they do seafood.
Thomas gave me a chance to change. And dinner gave us a chance to talk . We walked into the bistro, located in the historic market area, and ordered dinner .Now, staring across the table at him over a fabulous plate of potato-crusted salmon with chive butter sauce, it was hard not to notice how he had grown. Not necessarily matured, but definitely grown. Our years together had afforded us each other’s confidence. Even though we easily irritated each other,we trusted each other . When we first moved to Savannah,we were pretty much each other’s only friend. He found new ones quickly. I found Paige . Thomas loved her. First, because she got me away from hanging out with him and his friends. Second, because she got me away from hanging out with him and his friends.
He is the lover of the family. He’s always kissing and hugging on people. He is also the schmoozer of the group. He can schmooze you out of something—usually money—before you know you’ve even been schmoozed. Dad is onto him . Vicky’s a sucker. Me? Well, he learned most of his tricks from me, so I’m totally not snared in his tangled web.
He looks a great deal like our dad. And it seems that people have the same attraction to him as they do toward our father . Thomas has won the hearts of most of the older assistants at the courthouse—all women. Broken the hearts of quite a few of the interns—all women. And most of the judges assure him he needs to be a lawyer and needs to attend their alma mater—all ego. I’ve always thought he would be a great lawyer, because he will argue his point until you give in, give up, or slap him . The trait of debate he got from the one who birthed him . That even he cannot deny.
“I got some great songs off of the Internet today free. It’s like Napster used to be.”
“Are you hanging out with a rapper?”
“Do you live in this century?”
“Last I checked.”
“Honestly, sometimes it’s like a ninety-year-old woman crawls out of your body and lands into my conversations.”
I placed the fork back on my salad plate. “Is there something in the water about relating me to old people?”
“Napster was a Web site where you could download free music until some law got rid of that as an option. But people still find a way to do it.”
“Sounds illegal.”
“No more illegal than what record companies are charging for CDs.”
“So, what songs can you get?” I asked, taking a bite of the salmon that sat before me and letting it melt in my mouth.
He didn’t bother to stop chewing the steak that he had just put in his mouth.“Any song. Just click and it’s yours.”
“Can you get Donny Osmond songs on there?
”
“See, I knew it! You really are ninety. There is no way you, a twenty-four-year-old woman, should even know Donny Osmond songs . You should be singing Bon Jovi songs, or I’ll even give you Boyz II Men or that Jonathan Pierce guy, who’s not half-bad. But my Lord,woman, not Donny Osmond. Next thing you know you’ll be talking about Barry Manilow tunes.”
“I actually love—”
“Don’t say it, Savannah. I swear, I’ll dig you a hole in the ground when we leave here.”
“I’ll dig you a hole in the ground when we leave here.” I mimicked. “I am not old. And you shouldn’t swear.”
“See, you sound just like our mother. And to top it off you’re wearing pearls on a Monday.” He swung his fork at me, causing a piece of his potato to swat me in the face.
“Would you put that down before you gesture, please?” I wiped my face with my napkin. I had forgotten to take my pearls off when I changed clothes. They didn’t really match my jeans and T-shirt. “I’m trying to look more professional.”
“You’re trying to look like that Ms. Austin lady. And you will never look that good,” he said, not looking up from his plate.
“I am not. And I will too.”
He looked up at me with a totally annoying-brother kind of look.“You want to refuse who you are, to become something you’re not. And you don’t even know if what’s on the cover is an accurate representation of what’s on the pages. Are you getting me here?
Because I’m trying to relate to your world.”
“Whatever.”
“You like what you see, but you don’t know that what you see is all you will get. And once you get all that you see, you might not like it.” “You have just crossed over to loo-loo land.”
This dinner wasn’t enjoyable anymore. I got up to go to the restroom. My cell phone rang on the way.
“Hello?”
“Where are you? You sound like you’re in a well,” Paige’s voice declared.
“I’m in the restroom.”
“Gross! You’re not using the restroom and talking to me at the same time, are you?”
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