Sarah Booth Delaney

by Sarah Booth Delaney 01-06 (lit)

  CAROLYN: Exactly what kind of questions do you have in mind?

  JITTY: Well, as the author, I thought maybe you could tell me, and everyone else, a little about the future. I mean Sarah Booth has lost her man and gotten an opportunity to start her own investigation service. There's the chance she may carry the heir to Dahlia House. What does the future hold for us?

  CAROLYN: I see, you just want me to blurt out what's going to happen next. As a mystery writer, I have to point out that's against the rules.

  JITTY: Don't be cute with me, girl. I'm nearly a hundred and fifty years old. I'd say that's considerably your elder, though you aren't gettin' no shorter in the tooth. Didn't your mama teach you not to sass your elders?

  CAROLYN: My mother had no idea I'd spend my time consorting with folks like you and Sarah Booth. My parents thought I'd be something respectable, like a journalist.

  JITTY: Are you mockin' me?

  CAROLYN: Well, maybe just a little. To be honest, I've never been interviewed by a character. Let me ask you one question that's been nagging at me. When you first walked onto the pages of my book, you were wearing this god-awful seventies outfit. Why the seventies? Bad clothes. Bad music. Why?

  JITTY: Havin' lived through a number of decades, I got some historical perspective that you youngsters don't have. Sarah Booth was right on the verge of losin' everything she ever cared about, including our home. You picked up on the fact that Sarah Booth isn't exactly smooth when it comes to handlin' her men. It was up to me to do somethin', and I figured that if she couldn't catch her a man outright, then maybe she could at least get us an heir. The seventies were a time when women declared their sexual liberation. I thought I could give Sarah Booth a little nudge toward gettin' the baby we both need.

  CAROLYN: Ah, I see. So it was just an empty threat when you said you'd follow Sarah Booth to eternity if she didn't produce an heir for you to haunt?

  JITTY: I don't know for certain. But neither one of us wants to risk it. Hush up now, I'm supposed to be askin' the questions here.

  CAROLYN: Sorry. It's just that I have a few questions of my own.

  JITTY: So I see, but the publisher didn't give you this space to conduct an interview. They gave it to me. And I'm doin' the askin'. You get to be in charge the whole time you're writin'. This is my fifteen minutes, and you better back off.

  CAROLYN: My goodness, I'll try to stay in line.

  JITTY: See that you do. Maybe you'd like a drink. Ghosts don't have much truck with liquor, but Sarah Booth likes a mint julep ever' now and then. Here you go, now sit back in that rocker and let's talk. I've got a few more important questions. Sarah Booth let Hamilton slip back to Paris. He was a fine specimen, but he's gone. Could you put in a good word for Harold? I mean, he's solid and stable, and for a while there, he was burnin' for Sarah Booth. As the author, couldn't you reignite that fire?

  CAROLYN: Harold's kind of busy. What about Sylvia Garrett? Should I just kill her off?

  JITTY: Girl, you got a sassy streak a mile wide in you. I didn't ask you to kill anybody off. Couldn't they just have a fallin' out? How hard is that for you to write?

  CAROLYN: I don't know, Jitty. Sarah Booth already dumped Harold once. I've gotten kind of fond of him.

  Maybe I don't want to put him in the line of fire for that kind of abuse again.

  JITTY: What? Did I hear you right? Last time I looked, Harold was a man! Abuse won't hurt him one little bit.

  CAROLYN: You're sounding a little sexist, Jitty. Maybe I'll put in some sensitivity training classes for you.

  JITTY: You remindin' me a whole lot of Sarah Booth. Both of you stubborn and full of the devil. But forget about men, let's move on. Is Sarah Booth really goin' to become a private investigator?

  CAROLYN: She certainly has the talent. And I will tell you that in the next book she has a new client. I'm just a little worried, though. If she becomes successful as an investigator, you know what that means. She'll have to make a choice, family or career.

  JITTY: Oh, no. Don't be asking' her to choose between savin' Dahlia House or catchin' her a man. Don't do that!

  CAROLYN: But this is reality, Jitty. Women today have to juggle and choose. Just because Sarah Booth is a fictional character, I don't think it's good if she's the perfect detective and the perfect wife and mother.

  JITTY: Girl, I was countin' on you to help me talk some sense into Sarah Booth. She can do whatever she sets her mind to, and at the top of that list should be findin' her a good man and a bundle of joy. I don't think I like the influence you're havin' on her. I can see it's goin' to be up to me to put the emphasis where it belongs—on the family.

  CAROLYN: I'm not certain I like that look on your face. Jitty, what are you thinking?

  JITTY: You got your secrets, I got mine. Just remember. I been around a long, long time. You're gonna have to wake up early to get one over on me.

  CAROLYN: I have to wake up early to get my writing done. And while we're pointing out flaws, what about those nights you woke me up? You thought that was amusing, to slip into my dreams and make me get up and write?

  JITTY: It's my job. Where would you be without me?

  CAROLYN: A lot better rested, I'm sure. Do you have any more questions?

  JITTY: I got a piece of advice—stop askin' the questions. You're like one of Oprah's bad guests. You get to goin' and all you want to talk about is yourself.

  CAROLYN: Jitty, dusk is approaching. Forgive me if I say I'm not inclined to hang out on the porch of Dahlia House after dark with a ghost. If you want to know something else, you'd better ask.

  JITTY: You write a lot of other things. Are you goin' to be able to give me the attention I deserve?

  CAROLYN: Absolutely. It goes without saying, Jitty, that you're not easily ignored. All of you, Sarah Booth, Harold, Hamilton, Tinkie, Tomeeka, Millie—you all demand your due.

  JITTY: That's good to know. Just a few more questions. Were you a Daddy's Girl?

  CAROLYN: Only in the sense that I was an only daughter. I grew up in the pine barrens of Mississippi, way down in the southeast corner in a small town called Lucedale. There weren't any plantations around those parts, mostly small farms and paper company land. But I've known a few Daddy's Girls. It's an interesting culture, and one that's fading away. Like everywhere else, Mississippi is changing.

  JITTY: What's your fascination with the Delta?

  CAROLYN: Now, that's a good question. The Mississippi Delta is this huge triangle of land bordered on the west by the Mississippi River and a line of hills on the east. They say the topsoil is eight feet deep. Back in your day, it was the part of Mississippi with working plantations, and it's where the blues was born. The story goes that the cotton fields were so vast that the slaves would call out to one another, passing the messages or songs from one to another across the fields. That's how the call-back, or repeated lines, came to be so much a part of the blues.

  JITTY: The blues is some mighty powerful music. My man, Coker, now he could sing. I sure miss him sometimes. Hey, maybe you could write me a new man.

  CAROLYN: Maybe if I found a man for you, you'd leave Sarah Booth alone.

  JITTY: I'm not shirkin' my responsibilities for any reason. I can manage career and a personal life. But let's get back on track. What's Sarah Booth going to get into next?

  CAROLYN: I'm not Madame Tomeeka, and I can't predict the future, but since I've started writing the next book, I can give you a hint. A famous literary figure is murdered, and Sarah Booth is hired to find his killer.

  JITTY: Don't be putting my girl in danger.

  CAROLYN: She is a private investigator, Jitty.

  JITTY: Is Harold in this book?

  CAROLYN: Indeed he is. And Tinkie, Tomeeka, Cece, Chablis, and the other residents of Zinnia. Of course there'll be a few new characters. Do you think Sarah Booth would like to meet an artist from Nicaragua? He's a very charming man.

  JITTY: He's not the killer, is he?

  CAROLYN: I haven't finis
hed the book yet. I'm waiting on Sarah Booth to solve the mystery.

  JITTY: She already has a problem with men, don't go gettin' her involved with a killer. And one who's not even from Mississippi! I don't think this is a good idea. What would I do if Sarah Booth decided to move off to Nicaragua followin' some man? Just give her another shot at Harold.

  CAROLYN: We'll see.

  JITTY: Come on, you can tell me. Who's the killer?

  CAROLYN: You'll have to wait, Jitty, like the rest of us.

  JITTY: Well, don't think I'm goin' to be easy to manage. I know what Sarah Booth needs, and it looks like I'm gonna have to struggle against both of you to get it for her. But I have a plan.

  CAROLYN: Uh-oh. What kind of plan?

  JITTY: Let's just say that I've been studyin' up on some of that psychology Sarah Booth thinks so much of. I'm determined to be a better influence on her this time. I'm gonna be a role model she can be proud of. Maybe I can even get my own television show—Jitty Knows Best.

  CAROLYN: Why does the sound of that frighten me?

  JITTY: Good, solid family values. That's what Sarah Booth needs. It's been good talkin' with you, Miss Author, but I'd better get back to business. You keep on writin', girl, and I'll be seein' you in your dreams.

  1

  Chasing the blues away is a talent Delaney women are still trying to acquire. Perhaps our melancholy is a sign, as Jitty insists, of some obscure womb disorder. Regrettus Wombus, a medical term for the regretful womb, resulting in the deep-dark, down-and-ugly blues.

  Historically, Delaney women have been known to wallow in that place where loss takes up more space than any other organ. I fear I'm no exception to the family tradition.

  There wasn't a radio station in the small Mississippi town of Zinnia that wasn't playing "I'll Be Home for Christmas." It is my belief that any song mentioning chestnuts, toasty fires, or sleigh rides for two should be banned from the airwaves. It's a fact, documented in my psychology journals, that suicide rates increase during the holidays. Due, no doubt, to the sadistic disc jockeys playing these songs.

  With the conclusion of my first case, I'd received payment in full from Tinkie for my investigative services. Dahlia House had been saved, for the moment, from my creditors. I should have been on top of the world. Instead, I was in the front parlor, knotted in a tangle of tinsel, and with a Christmas tree that looked as if residents of Bedlam had put up the lights.

  Turning off the radio, I tossed the tinsel in the fire and was rewarded with a multihued flame. I picked up all the magnolia leaves, holly, and cedar that I'd cut and brought in to use as decorations. With a mighty heave, I burned them, too.

  As the last of the Delaneys, I'd inherited my mother's incredible collection of great albums, and I sat down on the carpet and began to go through them. I couldn't control the radio stations, but I could find my own music.

  As my fingers closed over Denise LaSalle, I felt a surge of renewed spirit. The album was a little scratched, but there was no denying the feminist power of the Delta-born blueswoman. It was perfect—fight the blues with the blues. And Denise was putting it on her no-good man. She had her Crown Royal, her car, and a juke-joint band to dance to. She'd also given me a new motto—"If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with."

  There were plenty of fish in the ocean. All I had to do was find me a pole and throw in my line.

  With my energy renewed, I crawled behind Aunt LouLane's horsehair sofa, found the electrical outlet, and jammed the prongs of the extension plug into the holes. Maybe I wasn't the best with traditional Christmas decorating, but I'd found something even better. Something that spoke to me. And I'd gotten it at a bargain-basement price.

  Peering over the back of the sofa at the mantel, I smiled with satisfaction at what I had wrought. The neon tubing slid to hot green with liquid light, creating the perfect outline of a Christmas wreath. Mingled in the green curlicues that made the body of the wreath were red ornaments that blinked on and off. It was a masterpiece, a real find in Rudy's Junk Shop.

  I picked up the second extension cord and poked it home. The reds, greens, blues, and yellows of old-fashioned Christmas lights flickered to life, creating a series of fascinating shadows on the high ceilings of the front parlor. Neon meets tradition! A successful Delaney moment.

  Before I could stand up to see the fruits of my labors, I heard the harrumph that warned me Jitty was in the room.

  "You've got this place lookin' like a Chinese whorehouse," Jitty said. "And you not much better. I didn't know they made such a thing as a flannel muumuu. Girl, it's late afternoon. You been wearin' that getup all day? And look at those socks. Just 'cause they red and it's Christmas don't mean you should wear 'em."

  Bracing against the sofa, I rose to my knees and traced her voice to the brocade wingback. She was sitting there, dark eyes reflecting the multihued Christmas lights that she disdained. Behind her, the neon wreath pulsed and throbbed, seeming to pick up the singer's declaration of freedom and at the same time give Jitty a hellish halo.

  "Merry Christmas, Jitty," I said, brushing the dust off my knees as I stood. "I've been decorating."

  "Honey, you need some serious help," she replied. "This ain't decoratin', this is vandalism."

  I walked across the wide, polished oak planks of the parlor and viewed my handiwork from her vantage point. The thirteen-foot fir tree, trimmed with about a million lights, at least five hundred ornaments, some red-velvet bows, a few wooden toys and trinkets, and five packages of the real old-timey silver icicles looked pretty good to me. Not to mention the stockings hung by the fireplace with care, or the thorn branch that I'd laboriously studded with rainbow gumdrops. I turned back to Jitty. "I think it looks great."

  "Don't get that hurt look on your face, Sarah Booth," she said coldly. "Some women got the touch when it comes to decoratin', some don't. You could improve yourself a little bit, though, if you'd take a few hints from—"

  "Stop!" I would not allow the name of the decorating maven from hell to be spoken in my home. My home. The phrase gave me a moment of pleasure. I, Sarah Booth Delaney, had single-handedly redeemed Dahlia House. I still had debts aplenty, but I no longer had to peek from behind closed curtains whenever a car drove up to make sure it wasn't the sheriff and a repo crew.

  "What you lookin' so self-satisfied for?" Jitty asked with tiny little snake rattles in her voice.

  I looked at her. Really looked at her, for the first time today. Gone were the glitz and gaudiness of the seventies. Jitty had reinvented herself yet again.

  "Where in the hell did you get those clothes?" I asked, pointing at her and moving my finger up and down to indicate the entire package. From the tight curls bound back by a turban-style scarf to the waist-cinched blue gingham dress and high-heeled pumps, Jitty looked like a negative image of Jane Wyatt on a rerun of Father Knows Best. My horrified gaze roved back up to her waist. My Lord, it had to be under twenty-three inches.

  "Somebody around here's got to put a halt to moral decay. No more of this 'free love, if it feels good do it' bull. What we need are some family values." Jitty looked like a rod had been rammed up her spine. "Once we get us some family values, maybe a family will follow."

  Her smug tone should have been a warning.

  "You mean you're done with Gloria Steinem and moved into the camp of that fifties-throwback Phyllis Schlafly?" And I had foolishly thought nothing could be worse than bad polyester and metallic eye shadow. Her hair, normally alive with energy, looked as if it had been beaten into submission.

  "You're leadin' a wild and reckless life, Sarah Booth. It's time you settled down. I thought I'd set you a good example."

  I briefly closed my eyes, hoping this was all a bad, bad nightmare. Jitty, my great-great-grandmother's nanny, a ghost lingering in Dahlia House from pre-Civil War days, was going to set an example for me. A woman who fed off me—literally, figuratively, and spiritually—had found me lacking in moral fiber. This from the haint who on
ly four weeks ago would have used a turkey baster to stuff me with the sperm of bachelor-banker Harold Erkwell?

  "Hold on one second, there—" I began.

  "Don't go pointin' that finger at me, missy," Jitty shot back, rising from her perch on the chair arm to stand on those slender little heels. It gave me a stab of pleasure to see her sway dangerously. She hadn't quite perfected the Loretta Young stance.

  "Missy?" My voice rose an octave. "Missy? What's going on here?"

  "You are a missy," she said, her eyes glittering now. "As in unmarried, over thirty, no prospects—you don't straighten up fast and act righteous, you gone be an old missy. And turn off that sex music. Listenin' to that stuff will get you—"

  "Bred," I supplied, finally coming to the heart of the matter. "Which is the real problem here. You're mad at me because I'm not pregnant." It was unbelievable. "You're furious because my . . . encounter with Hamilton Garrett V didn't produce a viable . . . product. This is all some form of ghostly punishment you've devised. My God! I'm not living with a badass from the Mod Squad any longer. Now I've got Aunt Jemima acting out Donna Reed!"

  "Child," she said carefully. "Not product. Child. That's what's wrong in this picture. You've lost your tender parts. I think it might have something to do with the Delaney womb condition. You let that man slip right through your fingers. You didn't even try to hold on to him."

  The memory of my passionate—and doomed— Thanksgiving romance was enough to push every holiday emotion I had right out the front door and across the frozen acres of the Mississippi Delta. "Hamilton is back in Europe. He hasn't even sent a Christmas card. And you're upset because I'm not the vessel that holds his seed?" My hands went automatically to my hips. I could feel the red spread up my face.

  "You need a doctor's appointment. If you didn't have some womb tilt, you might have held on to a few of those Garrett . . . you know ..."