Hildreth 2-in-1

by Denise Hildreth Jones

  Joy put a piece of orange in her mouth and chewed slowly. She wouldn’t speak until every morsel was dissolved. She was a lady that way. Forcing me to wait.

  “Well, if you want your stories to change people, then they first have to change you . Your story was witty and charming. But it didn’t say anything . You just told me what I can come down here and see for myself. See, I need you to tell me the things I don’t notice. I need you to reveal to me what I’ve missed myself.” She stopped for a moment and that distant look took over her face again as she stared at the large group of people that still surrounded the monument and my mother.

  “All this, Savannah”—she motioned across the street—“This hasn’t changed you, Savannah; it’s just annoyed you.”Well, I would beg to differ; she was the one to annoy me. She must have read it in my face. “Now, don’t get mad at me, baby. I’ve grown fond of you. But take it from an old lady: Living should change you. It shouldn’t leave you apathetic or annoyed, or dare I say, cynical.” Apparently she dared. “It should leave you changed. I’m not even sure this event has changed this city yet either. So far it’s just transpired in the middle of it. But everyone will be changed before it’s over. I guarantee you that.”

  “Changed, huh?”

  She wrapped up her peeling inside a napkin and stuffed it in her purse . Then her black eyes looked up at me to make sure I was listening.“Yes, but you can’t be changed until you know what you believe, Savannah.” She knew I was listening.

  She bent over and tugged at her drooping stockings before she stood. She pulled her dress down as she rose and took her tired straw bag in her hand . Those eyes looked straight into my soul and refused to look away without one final parting Joy thought.“Yeah, you need to figure out what you believe, Savannah. But it’s even more important to know why you believe it.”With that she left to greet a news reporter camped out underneath a nearby tree. Wonder what he needed to change.

  I stood up and threw the steak away, because I had lost my appetite. I tucked the paper underneath my arm. I had no need to read it. Joy had just made it clear what it said. A bunch of nothing.

  I would have returned to Jake’s, but the memories were simply too painful at this time. I had no desire to enter the newspaper either. Entering meant interacting, and I was downright tired of interacting. Didn’t care if I saw another woman carrying snacks in her purse or another curly-headed coworker.

  I flung the newspaper onto the passenger’s seat. The front page unfolded, and staring back at me was a beautiful young woman with long flaxen hair and breathtaking green eyes. Next to her, the picture of a nice-looking boy with hair close to the same color. Both looked to be in their late teens, early twenties. The headline declared, “Local Beauty Queen Arrested for Alleged Murder of Boyfriend.”

  I had forgotten. Over a nonexistent dinner with a hopelessly former love, and then a morning of enjoying my own weak press, I had forgotten. Life was supposed to have been altered forever by yesterday’s events. I had declared it myself. But life happened, just like always. I had dressed myself up, bought dinner, gotten dumped and then humiliated, and spent the evening mentally trashing a woman I didn’t even know. And this morning I had debated over heels or flip-flops, bought a Coke, got puffed up, and then had my balloon popped by a practical stranger, all while worlds just around the corner had stopped.

  My selfishness and shallowness slammed into me and stuck like a stretched flower around Ms. Joy’s upper thigh. It was what it was.

  Not one for avoiding confrontation, confronting myself seemed far less desirable.

  So much for avoiding interaction. Because interaction didn’t care a thing about avoiding me. It greeted me at the front desk. It greeted me rounding the first corner. It greeted me even in my little Styrofoam world.

  “Oh, Savannah. I’m so glad you finally got here. I just need you. I’m having nightmares. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep.” Miss Amber Topaz was pacing. And if she wasn’t careful, she would run right into my Styrofoam wall.

  I knew why she was really here. I was certain that this whole thing was nothing more than a brouhaha to see Joshua. She was in love with him. I still wasn’t quite sure if that was because she really liked him or because she saw him as the shortest distance between her and the title of Mrs. United States of America. And since her discovery that his desk was perched directly across from my own, I could never assume her visits were simply to see me. No, her dropping by would be for one reason alone: to run into Mr. Bike Boy. I was no fool. Maybe a witless wonder, but not a fool.

  Then she started to cry.Well, maybe she is here to see me.

  “Oh my, I think I’m going to hyperventilate.” She collapsed into the chair by my small orifice that would have been a door had a person been privileged enough to have an office with a door. “I might need mouth to mouth.” I was certain she peeked across the corridor.

  I grabbed my chair, pulled it up next to her, and sat down. “Amber, get a grip or I’m going to have to slap you.”

  That got her attention.“Why would you slap me?” She sniffled.

  “Because that’s what people do to people who act hysterical. Now, what in the world is going on?”

  “It’s just yesterday, Savannah. The whole thing. The body, the police, Miss Chatham County United States of America in handcuffs. I even went to see her!” she wailed.

  That one got me.“You did? What did she say?”

  “Oh,” she said, blowing her nose and trying to gain her composure. “I couldn’t go in. A guard wanted to search me . Well, my Lord have mercy, Savannah.” She sat upright in her chair and straightened the skirt of her teal sundress.“I’ve never had a man touch me in such places in my life, and I wasn’t about to have the first time happen by a complete stranger in a jail, now, was I? No, I’m waiting for Mr .North when he makes me Mrs. North and,well, let the party be—”

  “Please!”This child was crazier than I.“You and Joshua getting married isn’t even a present reality. Stick to the facts. So, you didn’t go see her?”

  “No, I just couldn’t.” She started tearing up again. “But I’m going to. I just want you to go with me. I neeeeeeeed yooooooou, Savannah.” She wrapped her arms around my neck and threw her head down in sobs.

  Her head was bobbing from her heaves. I removed her arms from my neck.“How is it you are so hysterical today, when I heard you were back outside with my mother last night trying to do Pilates again?”

  She cocked her head at me as if that was the dumbest question she had heard since the mayor emceed the Miss Georgia United States of America and asked her to tell why she should be the next Miss Georgia United States of America. Shouldn’t the answer be piercingly obvious? “Savannah, I called your mother last night because I was in such a mess. She asked me to come spend the night with her, and she spent our entire dinner encouraging me and giving me advice, and then she held me while I criiiiiiiied.” She started blubbering again.

  “My mother did all that?”

  “Yes . Then she had me laughing, telling me crazy stories about when she was young, and before I knew it I was showing her more Pilates moves. It’s not like I just walked up and said, ‘Okay sunshine, let me teach you some Pilates.’ I mean, please, Savannah, I’m not totally callous.”

  Ooh, right word. Right way.“Well, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have just assumed.”

  “It’s okay.” She grabbed a tissue and snorted loud enough to alert the Atlantic’s ships of fog.“Your mother’s really special, Savannah. I’m not even her daughter and she makes me feel like I am . You should be nicer to her.”

  But before I could respond, the sound of a familiar voice came up the hall. I stood up and peeked around the corner. Ms. Faith Austin was walking down the hall, accompanied by Mr. Hicks’s “charming” secretary once again. Looking down at Amber’s lovely dress in teal, it became clear to me that she was too . . . well, too teal. But I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to speak.

  “Hello Faith . What has yo
u at the paper so long today?” I asked as they walked past my door, clearly on their way to the elevator.

  Jessica would not let the poor woman speak. “Savannah, Ms. Austin and I are in an extended meeting with Mr. Hicks, and we don’t have time for chatting.”

  Faith stopped anyway. “Oh, Mr. Hicks and I are just going to wrap up our interview from this morning.”

  “Well, I hope it has gone well.”

  Amber blew once more. “Oh, excuse me. This is Amber. Uh, my friend.” I tried not to wince from the pain of the proclamation.

  “Nice to meet you, uh,Amber,” Ms. Austin offered.

  “We really need to be going,” Jessica snipped.

  Amber ignored her. “Well, hello. I’m Amber Topaz Childers. I’ve seen you, haven’t I? Down there at the monument.”

  “Yes, I have work I’m doing down there.”

  “Well, I hope it goes well . You just let Ms . Victoria know if you need a thing . That lady would do anything for anyone . Well, ladies, I need to skedaddle . Have to sort out some things down at the visitors center . We have some issues with this group out of Atlanta, AFUCLA or something. Probably a bunch of sorority girls trying to stir up the dickens . Well, gotta run. Nice to meet you. And you too, little one. Whatever your name is.” I thought for a moment the six-foot Amazon Amber might actually pat Jessica on the head.

  “Bye,Amber. I’ll talk to you soon . We’ll figure something out.”

  “I know . You always do.” And with that her teal skirt reflected fluorescently off of the drab gray carpet and white walls until she safely turned the corner.

  Jessica chimed in first. “What an idiot.” She flung her hair around.

  “She’s not an idiot, Jessica.”

  “Sounded like you thought she was even in your own column today,” she sneered.

  “You missed the point.”

  “No you missed a point.” She took Ms. Austin’s arm and they continued to the elevator. Ms. Austin turned back with a wink. I had nothing to offer in return . Therein lay the whole problem.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  These are for you.” I turned to see Mr. Hicks standing in the doorway of my cubby. He laid a thick legal-size envelope on my desk and then looked casually around my partition-style walls.“Well, you’ve made this rather homey, Savannah.”

  “Remember that probation period we talked about when I first started last week?”

  “Yes, I do.” He placed his arms atop the set of twins he was packing above his belt.

  “Are these”—I pointed toward the folder he had laid down in front of me—“Are these going to cause me to hasten my departure from these homey quarters, or could I dare bring in a few more items of hominess?”

  “Well, ignoring the fact that hominess isn’t a word, you should know not all the correspondence in that folder there is negative. And today’s story partially redeemed you. And controversy sells newspapers, Savannah.” He headed back up the hall toward the elevator that would lead him to his real door and his beautiful view of Bay Street.

  He didn’t answer my question. But I had a lot of questions that needed answers. And obviously to him and the little bundle of sheer delight that answered his phones, being hated one day and liked the next was no big deal as long as people bought newspapers.

  Perusing the stack of letters, I was shocked by how much people actually cared about what happened on the cover of a newspaper. The opinions were straightforward and strong. People cared one way or the other about what was happening on Wright Square. People had opinions that I had ignored for one reason alone: evasion. I was a chicken.

  Gloria Richardson had never been a chicken. She talked about things that were uncomfortable. Told stories that ignited passion and compassion. And I wanted to be well liked at other people’s expense.

  You have to know why you believe what you believe. Joy’s words wouldn’t leave me. So I would confront them. I would make a business trip this afternoon. I might come out with stink all over me, but it was a trip that must be traveled.

  “Savannah Phillips, you haven’t been to my house since the day you picked up that last pot of butter beans I made you.”

  Granny Daniels never changed. She had always looked old. But not old in a bad way. Just old in an old way. Some people just always look old . You didn’t age with them . You didn’t enjoy their early years. You just know them old . Well, that is how Granny Daniels has always been to me.

  I also never quite remembered what she wore, except that there was always a hat, a black hat. But I couldn’t recall the style of hat, or what was under the black. At that age, most of the people she knew were dying left and right. I imagine she decided to simply stay dressed for the occasion.

  But today I noticed. Today I wanted to notice. I wanted to notice detail. Not my own, but someone else’s. She didn’t have a hat on today, and her gray curls were neatly pressed, tight up around her head like a knit cap. She wore a simple coat-style dress in a pretty bright shade of pink. No belt, no buttons, just a zipper up the front, and short sleeves cuffed at the bottom.

  The shoes were similar to Joy’s. In the sandal family, black, and with pantyhose sticking out from the toes. She was thicker than I had ever realized. But she was wearing fewer clothes than I had ever seen her wear before, either. Her toy poodle yapped at me as soon as I entered and sniffed my legs for the first thirty minutes of our conversation.

  “Do you mind if I come in for a few minutes?” I asked, standing at the red front door of her modest white-siding home.

  “No, honey . You come in here and sit your little self down and let Granny Daniels fix you some good eatin’.”

  I couldn’t do it. I could sit here and smell mothballs, but I couldn’t put them in my mouth.“Oh, that’s okay. I’m not hungry.”

  I sat down at her small kitchen table while she fixed her a plate and I tried to disguise the noises coming from my stomach area.

  “Well, what brings you here, sweet girl?” she asked, sitting down next to me at the table. Her plate looked so good. Fresh biscuits, fried pork chops, cabbage, and some kind of potato casserole. This meal and her age were proof: Lard doesn’t necessarily kill you young. It could have been one fine meal. But I was certain it looked far better than it would taste. Of course, with the smell so thick inside the house, I might not even be able to smell it in the food. But it just wasn’t worth the risk.

  “I don’t know. Just had some questions.”

  “What kind of questions, honey?” Butter dripped down her fingers as she lifted that steaming biscuit toward her mouth.

  I tried not to lick my lips. My eyes glazed over, and for a moment I lost my train of thought.“Uh,well . . . I was . . . I was just curious what you thought about everything that’s been happening around here?”

  “Well, it has been rather eventful lately, hasn’t it?”

  “Yes, ma’am, it sure has.”

  She leaned back in her chair and took a long sip of her sweet tea. “I’ve got a lot of thoughts, Savannah . You don’t live this long and not have a lot of thoughts on a lot of things. I mean, let’s face it: I’m old. Pretty much have always felt old.” She chuckled, and I kept my thoughts to myself.“But we’re facing times, Savannah, that will probably determine the future for you and your children.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean your mother and hundreds others like her are out there trying to preserve a defining line for you and your children.”

  “Chaining herself to a monument is defining me all right.”

  “Is that all you see, Savannah?”

  “Is what all I see?”

  “Is all you see that your mother is chained to something? Do you not see the bigger picture?”

  “There’s always a bigger picture for my mother. But the manner in which she chooses to state her cases is usually all I can focus on.”

  “Then you’ve probably been robbed of a lot of powerful revelations.”

  She noticed my pause and she conti
nued.“You are so focused on your fear that your mother will damage your life or reputation that you forget she’s her own person. Do you know what’s really happening around that square?”

  I was certain this was a trick question.“Let’s hear your thoughts.”

  “Life, Savannah. People are declaring life as they have chosen to live it. Some are saying they have chosen to follow the principles carved in that piece of stone. Others are saying anything of a ‘Christian viewpoint’ has no place on public property. But do you know where the Ten Commandments reside as we speak?”

  “No, ma’am, I can’t say that I do.”

  “They rest on the floor of the National Archives Building. And a picture of Moses holding the Ten Commandments—or ‘the tablets of the law,’ some say—is on the outside of the building that houses the U.S. Supreme Court. Do you think when ‘In the Year of Our Lord’ was written into the Constitution that some hidden meaning, some hidden god, was being referred to?”

  I wasn’t sure if this needed an answer.

  “No, it was the one true God.” See, it didn’t.“People can argue all they want that God isn’t mentioned in the Constitution. But He is the basis for the Constitution, Savannah. It was written because of who He is.”

  “But what about the separation of church and state? Isn’t that also part of the core of who we are?”

  “Well, that’s nowhere in the Constitution.”

  “Yes it is!”

  “Where?”

  She had me there. “I have no idea.”

  “Because it’s not . That phrase was originally taken from a statement in a letter by Thomas Jefferson that said there should be a ‘wall of separation between church and state.’ So in a move totally separate of Congress, the courts took what had originally been a prohibition against the Congress establishing a national church and changed it into a prohibition against any acts of religion by the state government—or anyone affiliated with it.”