We girls sat expressionless.
Constance White flipped her luxurious locks of yellow hair over one shoulder and remarked, “Tommy McAllister, why don’t you walk yourself back over yonder to the other side of the park? And take these hoodlums with you.”
“Hoodlums? Hoodlums?” Jackson piped up, “Oh, great, Tommy. Now I’m in the doghouse for sumpthin’ that don’t concern me no how.”
Pearl quipped, “You fools don’t know the first thing about courting a gal.”
Timmy McAllister stepped up to take his swing at bat. “Maybe if y’all were more kindly, we fellas would be more obliging. Besides, you gals need to learn a thing or two ’bout pleasing a man. My momma says it’s easier to tempt a growling grizzly with a pot of honey than a jug of vinegar.”
Little Tallulah worked up the courage to speak her piece. “Tommy, I mean no disrespect to your momma, but that’s hogwash.” She adjusted her spectacles on her nose. “Why would any proper girl want to attract a mean grizzly bear anyhow?”
“Tallulah, I don’t think Tommy here meant no disrespect.” Jackson tried to run interference. “Us menfolk would be wholly lost without you lovely ladies strolling around town on our arms. Womenfolk are sweet and simple. They’re everything we men aren’t,” Jackson explained. “Us guys…we’re coarse and sweaty and disgustin’ beasts. It don’t take nothin’ to keep you ladies happy.” Jackson turned to the other boys, who were listening on as though he were preaching from the holy gospels. “I consider myself an aficionado of sorts on women folk. You gotta learn to play ’em right.”
Pearl hoisted her hands on her hips. “What exactly do you mean, ‘you gotta play ’em right’?”
“Yeah, Jackson,” I repeated. “What do you mean?”
The other girls leaned in with listening ears.
Jackson scratched his cowlick. “Now, wait a cotton-pickin’ minute! You gals don’t go get all twisted,” he stuttered. “All I’m suggestin’ is you ladies are susceptible to pitchin’ fits and gettin’ worked up over the smallest of nothing. My pa says we men have to keep the engines runnin’ smooth and life’s roads flat without any bumps or potholes so the truck don’t bounce about too much. Because women don’t take kindly to a rough rocky road.”
“That’s a pile of steamin’ horse shit,” Pearl snapped. “My momma’s driving the roughest roads in all of Savannah. Not a single solitary man is driving it for her. My momma is on that long road all on her own.”
Jackson went silent.
After Pearl finished, I jumped into the wrangle. “The only rides Miss Loretta ever gets are from some worthless men at Claude’s Tavern, asking to take her back to their place. I promise you, Jackson Taylor, those Southern gentlemen aren’t offering her a safe ride home!”
Constance spoke, “Jackson, what you don’t know about women folk could fill all the shelves of the Live Oak Library.”
“Ain’t true,” he said. Sufficiently shamed, Jackson shoved his hands deep into his pockets as though he were digging a hole to make a clean escape from Forsyth Square. “Poppy, I wasn’t sayin’…”
Constance interrupted, “Jackson, you’ve said quite enough.”
Looking defeated and dejected, he shook his head and signaled with his shoulder for the other fellas to follow him over to the tether ball poles.
Timmy declared, “Well, that went over like a fart during church service.”
As Jackson walked from us, slumping his shoulders and kicking dirt with his untied sneakers, he turned back to my direction. “Dadgummit!” he griped with a pathetically sad expression. “So, are you gals still gonna join us on Halloween night? We can all go huntin’ for spooks.”
Giddy with excitement, I wanted to accept his invitation on the spot, but Constance hushed me and took the lead. “Jackson, we’ll consider your invitation, but you leave us be for now while we ponder your deficiencies as a potential beau.”
CHAPTER 20
Johnny Harris Supper Club
An intricate, scalloped lace detail adorned Donita’s dress’s collar. A pale-blue satin sash cinched her slender waist and was tied into a lovely full bow at the curvature of her lower back. She had sewn the dress from a paper pattern. The instructions had called for the same lovely white lace to be stitched along the hem of both sleeves, but the fabric store hadn’t the sufficient yardage, so Donita substituted delicate antique buttons on each cuff. She paired the new dress with pearl-colored pumps and a matching purse and the diamond rose pendant that Rodney had gifted her was strung about her throat. She had sprayed Rodney’s favorite perfume on her neck and décolletage.
It was a rare night out for the couple. Donita had been jittery all afternoon, allowing herself to be excited about their date. But sitting across from Rodney at Delia’s, she now felt uneasy and would’ve preferred to be at home. A single compliment in the car on the drive over about her dress or the scent of her perfume would have eased her anxiety, but Rodney had long since stopped offering such niceties.
The two sat quiet at the table. Any futile conversation was only meant to bridge the uncomfortable silence. Donita graciously smiled over at a couple at another table whom she recognized from church.
Rodney announced, “I saw Craig Murdy and Skipper Doyle in the lounge when we walked in. I’m goin’ over to say howdy. I’ll bring you back a glass of wine.” He walked into the adjacent bar and shook the hands of a few of his hell-raising buds from his high school days.
Donita was left sitting alone at their table for two. She took the opportunity to check her reflection in a powder compact. Donita had believed herself to be sufficiently attractive, but only in the way that any slender Savannah girl with straight teeth and clear skin was pretty. She understood that she was no debutant. She wasn’t of the proper pedigree or lineage. Her poppa had been a poor farmer and her momma had sewn dresses for the same school girls who had snickered at Donita’s simple frayed frocks.
Donita believed her eyes to be nothing special—they were dull and flat and seemed to carry no light. She wished her auburn hair could hold a curl without having to be lacquered with an aerosol spray. Tonight, she worried that her dress appeared to be crudely home-made. She examined the slightly crooked stitch on her left cuff and took notice of a pulled loose thread in another seam. Donita hated that she wasn’t a more skilled seamstress. She hated that her eyes were brown as mud and hated that her smile wasn’t pearly white.
Inspecting her reflection in the compact’s mirror, Donita was relieved to find on that particular night, her appearance was acceptable; she was almost pleasantly pleased with her long hair. She exhaled. The club’s dim lighting and the penciled black liner along her lashes made her eyes appear smoky, almost alluring. Her powdered skin looked smooth and supple. Her gathered hair had held tight to a soft curl that cascaded about her shoulders.
She closed the round compact and waited alone at their table while Rodney laughed with his boys in the restaurant’s lounge.
Donita recalled a time when Rodney wouldn’t ever leave her sitting alone. He shadowed her about town. The mere thought of another man admiring his bride would set Rodney off. Now the idea of Donita sitting alone at home or at nice supper club never crossed his mind. If Donita stayed up through the night waiting on his return, it wasn’t his concern.
Donita recalled how she had romanticized Rodney’s jealous-fueled rages. Years earlier, at the picture show, when they crossed paths with one of her old high school sweethearts, an incensed Rodney burned hot with jealousy, punching his balled-up fist right through a wall, breaking a wooden chair, and putting her old flame in a hospital bed. There was a time when Rodney’s possessiveness made her blush, when she felt flattered by his rage.
Some seven years later, Donita understood that she was a painfully silly, stupid woman. She was sickened by the scent of his aftershave, repulsed by the sound of his breathing as he slept on the pillow beside her. On a few occasions, she had conjured a few new recipes of Rodney’s favorite entrees, seasoned with
arsenic. On this night, she hated herself for never having served Rodney his last supper.
Listening to Rodney’s boisterous laughter filtering in from the lounge, Donita felt herself growing uneasy, slightly nauseous. She sipped from the glass of ice water and blotted perspiration from above her lip with a cloth napkin. She’d been with Rodney long enough to detect by the tenor of his laughter what mischief he was up to. From his obscene cackling, she knew with absolute certainty that Rodney and the other men in the bar were speaking of something crude and tawdry—boasting on some sexual conquest or some drug-fueled escapade.
Donita wondered if the other diners looked on her with pity and sympathy as she sat alone. She wanted to slide beneath their table for two. Adjusting the napkin on her lap, she quietly cursed for not having the sufficient lace to stitch to the hems of her cuffs. She grew furious that she’d lost herself in a marriage of shame.
When Rodney returned to the table with a drink in his hand, having forgotten her glass of Chardonnay, Donita said nothing.
When the blond waitress in a tight blouse arrived to take their order, Rodney and she held a glance a moment too long. But Donita remained quiet.
It was after her husband’s eyes followed the waitress’s shapely backside all the way to the kitchen that Donita said in a hushed whisper, “Rodney, you’re embarrassing me.”
“Oh, baby. She ain’t nothin’ but some damn waitress.” He dismissed his wife. “Don’t go get all pissy.”
“It’s just not appropriate, honey,” she said.
Like the many times before, Donita worried about a potential public scene. She slightly smiled, “Behave yourself, baby.”
“You do this every gawd-damned time we go out.” He took a drink of his scotch, and the table went quiet.
The curvy waitress returned to their table with his soup and Donita’s salad. As the server placed the dish in front of Rodney, their hands brushed ever so slightly. Rodney and she then exchanged private smiles. The blond waitress’s false lashes fluttered, and she blushed red.
Donita had witnessed it all. She wanted to disappear—shrink into her chair into the smallest of nothing. But Donita swallowed hard and turned her eyes to the table.
Unaware or unconcerned, Rodney stuffed his cloth napkin down the front of his shirt and began slurping his soup. He tore pieces of warm sourdough bread, sopping it about the bowl of bisque.
Before their main course had even arrived, Donita had lost her appetite. Her salad sat undisturbed in front of her.
“Why are you with me?” she asked.
“What?”
With pleading eyes, Donita asked him again, “Why so, Rodney? Why are you with me?”
“Oh, Christ.” He shook his head. “Are you gonna go crazy on me tonight? Can’t we just have one gawd-damned night without you goin’ bat-shit crazy? She’s a silly fucking waitress,” he chuckled. “If I wanted to get the third degree tonight, I would’ve walked myself into the prosecutor’s office. Don’t make a gawd-damned scene over nothin’.”
“It’s not about her,” she replied. “It’s true, I’m humiliated by your behavior, but it’s not about all the other women, Rodney.”
“Bullshit!” His volume raised to an uncivilized level. “With you it’s always about one thing or the other.” He finished his drink with one gulp.
Hoping to prevent a public spectacle, she repeated in her library voice, “It’s not about all the women.”
Rodney leaned in close, still gripping his empty scotch glass. “If you were a better wife, there wouldn’t be a need for other women.”
Donita dabbed the corners of her mouth with her cloth napkin. “I’m afraid I’m feeling sickly. I must be comin’ down with the flu bug that’s goin’ around.” She rose from the table and smoothed her skirt with the palms of her hands.
Their nearest neighbors, Fred and Charlotte Wilkes, were dining in a corner booth and called to Donita, but she kept walking in a straight line, leaving her purse and knit sweater. After dropping a ten-dollar bill on the table, Rodney gathered Donita’s belongings and followed behind her out to the parking lot.
They remained silent in the car all the way back to their little house out past the train tracks.
Donita sat numb, and Rodney was seething.
Back inside the privacy of their small place, Rodney beat her with his bare hands until Donita lost consciousness on the kitchen linoleum.
CHAPTER 21
Miss Loretta arrived, skipping into the kitchen through the backscreen door. Clutching a bouquet of wild flowers, she exclaimed, “It’s finally happened! I do believe it has finally happened!”
I was making buttermilk biscuits at the counter. “What’s happened, Loretta?”
Downright giddy with glee, she held the bouquet under my nose for a sniff. “Today, I met the man of my dreams. A true gentleman!”
Sook was cracking pecans into a bucket. She rolled her eyes behind her low-riding spectacles.
I said, “That’s terrific, Miss Loretta!”
She found a vase in a cupboard and went about arranging the flowers.
“Oh, Poppy,” she gushed. “He’s the most handsome man I’ve ever laid my eyes on. Dark, mysterious features and smooth skin, the color of caramel. His name is Senor Juan Gabriel Medina.” She pronounced his full name out loud like he had the winning raffle ticket. “Juan Gabriel was tending to the front yard of the yellah house four doors down. He waved me over—Senorita! Senorita!—and handed me these lovely, happy flowers over their picket fence. I don’t want to jinx it, Poppy, but I do believe it was love at first sight!”
Sookie separated the hard shell from the meat of the nut. “Loretta, do you mean to tell me that you’ve fallen in love with the Mexican help over yonder at Clyde and Gladys Culpepper’s place?”
Miss Loretta replied, “Love is colorblind, Sook.”
My ancient aunt thought on it. “So, on the sidewalk this Juan Carlos confessed his undying love?”
“Gabriel,” Loretta corrected her. “His name is Juan Gabriel.”
Exasperated, Sookie squeezed her nutcracker. “Sweet mother of Andrew Jackson! So, this Juan Gabriel confessed his undying love for you?”
“There ain’t no boundaries or borders that a true heart can’t climb over,” Miss Loretta explained. “Our love can rise above the chain link fences keeping us apart.”
“I don’t care if the man is a Mexican or a Methodist. That don’t make a lick of sense.” Sookie shook her head. “Other than this fella giving you a handful of Gladys Culpepper’s stinkweeds, how did you determine that you and Senior Juan Jose were a match? What exactly did he say?”
“It’s Juan Gabriel.”
“Holy mother of Jefferson Davis! What did this Juan Gabriel say?”
“Say?” Miss Loretta looked puzzled.
I spoke up, “Yes, Momma. Did Juan whisper romantic sweet nothings into your ear?”
She licked her slippery lips. “Oh, no, no. Senor Juan Gabriel Medina can’t speak a syllable of English,” she declared. “I just knew it was our destiny when our eyes first met. We knew instantly that we were made for each other.” She gazed starry-eyed up to the ceiling.
“Knew what?” I asked.
“We knew that we were a perfect match! Like you know when you find the ideal handbag or when you slip into a comfortable bra with adequate underwire support at the department store.”
“I give up!” Sookie replied. “This is one nut I ain’t never gonna crack!”
Donita Pendergast and Miss Loretta weren’t never gonna be friendly.
I suspected they tolerated each other on my account. The two women were cut from different cloths. Donita was proper and polished with her perfect, pious, pin curls. Miss Loretta was tawdry and tarnished.
If they passed on the sidewalk, they walked a wide path around each other. When Donita came by for a glass of sweet tea with Sookie and me, the two only exchanged stiff niceties, and then Miss Loretta would find reason to leave the house or head up
to her room.
As for Donita, she was cordial enough to Loretta, but Momma made it crystal clear at every turn that she believed the Pendergast woman was the prissy sort and carried herself with an heir of superiority.
“Ain’t true,” I said. “Donita is real good people.”
“Poppy, those buttoned-up, holy-roller types ain’t got the time of day for the likes of me,” she replied. “Her snotty sort turns up their snooty noses in judgement at the mere scent of my perfume.”
“It just ain’t true,” I repeated. “I don’t believe I’ve ever heard a mean-spirited word pass from Donita’s lips.”
Loretta remarked, “She may not come right out and say it, but I promise in her mind, she’s already got me burnin’ in the fiery pits of damnation.”
When Donita dropped me off after a church social, she would amiably smile and nod to Loretta from her car’s window.
Reclining on the front porch, dressed in a blouse exposing a healthy helping of her ample bosoms, Loretta begrudgingly offered Donita a half-hearted howdy.
From her automobile, Donita waved. “It’s a mighty fine afternoon, Loretta.”
Reading from her Hollywood gossip magazine in the shade of the porch, Loretta responded back, “This ungodly humidity flattens my hair and makes my tits sweat.”
Donita blushed a deep shade of crimson and hurriedly cranked up her window. “Bye, Poppy. I’ll see you at next Sunday’s service.”
“Thank you kindly, Donita, for the ride home.”
I sauntered up the front stoop. “Miss Loretta, you’re just awful.”
“I’m only truth telling.” Adjusting herself, she quipped, “That woman wouldn’t take a whiz on me if I was on fire.”
I supposed it was true—the two women were different sorts. Loretta was running fast and wild. She’d never be a Savannah socialite, accepted among the proper social circles. Miss Loretta was a moonlight lady, courted only in shadows and loved one night at a time. Donita Pendergast had chosen for herself a strikingly handsome man but painfully cruel. She willingly accepted the two-dollar cut carnations from the Piggly Wiggly and never ever thought to ask for a dozen long-stemmed roses from the elegant florist shop on Pennsylvania Avenue. However, if both of the ladies’ cards were spread out across the table and they saw the hands each were dealt, the pair could’ve clearly understood they weren’t so dissimilar.
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