Calling Me Home
Authors: Kibler Julie
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For Grandma, for what might have been
But all lost things are in the angels’ keeping,
Love;
No past is dead for us, but only sleeping,
Love;
The years of Heaven will all earth’s little pain
Make good,
Together there we can begin again
In babyhood.
—from Helen Hunt Jackson’s poem “At Last”
Contents
39. Miss Isabelle, Present Day
Acknowledgments
I
OWE SO
many people a debt of gratitude, I hardly know where to begin. The order will seem wrong no matter how I do this.
I’ve been blessed with amazing literary agents. Elisabeth Weed, you were my first choice all along, and I still can’t believe I’m lucky enough to have you on my team. Foreign rights agent Jenny Meyer is nothing short of magic. We’d all be lost without their assistants, Stephanie Sun and Shane King, who keep the important stuff signed and filed and sent. I believe film agent Jody Hotchkiss is as crazy about movies as I am, which is a good thing. Thank you all for falling in love with
Calling Me Home.
Editors Hilary Rubin Teeman at St. Martin’s Press and Jenny Geras at Pan Macmillan are full of wisdom and just the right amount of mercy. Because of your magnificent teamwork,
Calling Me Home
is deeper, wider, longer, and truer. Your enthusiasm, and that of the entire St. Martin’s and Pan Macmillan teams, is a dream come true. To my foreign publishers and editors, I am thrilled and humbled and grateful to have so many readers around the world.
Kim Bullock, Pamela Hammonds, Elizabeth Lynd, Joan Mora, and Susan Poulos, what would I ever do without you? You have become more than my critique group and blog partners at What Women Write. You are my friends, my confidantes, and my writing compass.
Calling Me Home
would be a different book without you.
Others were instrumental in reading early versions and giving sage feedback or early endorsements: Carleen Brice, Diane Chamberlain, Gail Clark, Margaret Dilloway, Helen Dowdell, Heather Hood, Sarah Jio, Beverly McCaslin, Garry Oliver, Jerrie Oliver, Judy Oliver, Tom Oliver, and Emilie Pickop. Thank you all.
Here’s to everyone at Book Pregnant, an invaluable cluster of debut authors, for helping me discern what to worry about and what to leave behind. I am honored to share the joys and trials of birthing books with all of you.
I’m continually amazed by the generosity of the multitude of other writers who have intersected my writing journey, including the folks at Backspace, The Seven Sisters, Barbara Samuel-O’Neal, Margie Lawson, and the Mount Hood retreaters, especially Therese Walsh, who introduced me not only to that group, but also to my agent.
I offer special thanks to a group of nonwriter friends for encouragement and cheering along the way. May we one day find the eternally peaceful harbor for which we long, but in the meantime, as songwriter David Wilcox suggests, we’ll let the wave say who we are. And speaking of David Wilcox, thanks for the wisdom of Rule Number One.
Without family, whether by blood, marriage, or honorary designation, none of this would be possible. My parents, siblings, and in-laws never doubted I would one day do this thing I love; it’s how we live in this family. Gail and Jay Clark have loved and supported me longer than anyone I’ve known who is not blood related. I couldn’t have survived without you, seriously. My children have taught me the meaning of true love from the moment they each came into my life. Heather, Ryan, Emilie, and Kristen, your hearts go with me wherever I go. And my husband, Todd, my best friend and true knight in shining armor, made it possible for me to rediscover and focus on my passions with his steady, unwavering support. How can I ever thank you for taking on, with gusto, this roller coaster of a ready-made family all those years ago?
Fannie Elizabeth Hayes, thank you for helping me conjure up Dorrie through more than a decade of sharing with me your courage, your compassion, and your corny sense of humor. May all your unique and biggest dreams come true.
To my grandmother, Velma Gertrude Brown Oliver, even though you are already wearing your celebration dress and might not hear me over the singing, thank you for the glimmer of a story that captured my heart and wouldn’t let go. And thank you, Dad, for telling me.
Last, a note to my readers. Thank you for reading
Calling Me Home.
Any errors in historical facts or settings are mine alone. I hope you’ll take this novel for what it is: a story I imagined about things that are true. If you live along the routes Dorrie and Isabelle travel, you know better than I do how far things have come and how far they still need to go. It’s up to you to be the change.
1
Miss Isabelle, Present Day
I
ACTED HATEFUL
to Dorrie the first time we met, a decade or so ago. A person gets up in years and she forgets to use her filters. Or she’s beyond caring. Dorrie thought I didn’t care for the color of her skin. No truth to that at all. Yes, I was angry, but only because my beauty operator—hairdresser they call them these days, or
stylist,
which sounds so uppity—left with no notice. I walked all the way into the shop, which is no small effort when you’re old, and the girl at the counter told me my regular girl had quit. While I stood there blinking my eyes, fit to be tied, she studied the appointment book. With a funny smile, she said, “Dorrie has an opening. She could do you almost right away.”
Presently, Dorrie called me over, and certainly, her looks surprised me—she was the only African-American in the place, as far as I could tell. But here was the real problem: change. I didn’t like it. People who didn’t know how I liked my hair. People who made the cape too tight around my neck. People who went away without any warning. I needed a minute, and I guess it showed. Even at eighty, I liked my routine, and the older I get, the more it matters. Picture me now at almost ninety.
Ninety. I’m old enough to be Dorrie’s white-haired grandmother. And then some. That much is obvious. But Dorrie? She probably doesn’t even know she’s become like the daughter I never had. For the longest time, I followed her from salon to salon—when she wouldn’t settle down and stay put. She’s happier now, has her own shop these days, but she comes to me. Like a daughter would.
We always talk when Dorrie comes. At first, when I met her, it was just the regular stuff. The weather. News stories. My soap operas and game shows, her reality TV and sitcoms. Anything to pass the time while she washed and styled my hair. But over time, when you see the same person week after week, year after year, for an hour or more, things can go a bit deeper. Dorrie started talking about her kids, her crazy ex-husband, and how she hoped to open her own shop one day, then all the work that entailed. I’m a good listener.
Sometimes, she’d ask me about things, too. Once she started coming to my house, and we got comfortable in our routine, she asked about the pictures on my walls, the keepsakes I have on display here and there. Those were easy enough to tell about.
It’s funny how sometimes you find a friend—in the likely places—and almost immediately, you can talk about anything. But more often than not, after the initial blush, you find you really have nothing in common. With others, you believe you’ll never be more than acquaintances. You’re so different, after all. But then this thing surprises you, sticking longer than you ever predicted, and you begin to rely on it, and that relationship whittles down your walls, little by little, until you realize you know that one person better than almost anyone. You’re really and truly friends.
It’s like that with Dorrie and me. Who would have thought ten years later we’d still be doing business together, but so much more, as well. That we’d not only be talking about our shows but sometimes watching them together. That she’d be making excuses to stop by several days a week, asking if I need her to run any errands for me—wanting to know if I’m out of milk or eggs, if I need to go to the bank. That I’d be making sure when I ride the cart around the grocery store, after the Handitran drops me off, I put a six-pack of her favorite soft drink in the basket so she’ll have something to wet her whistle before she starts on my hair.
One time, a few years back, she looked embarrassed when she started to ask me a question. She stopped mid-sentence.
“What?” I said. “Cat got your tongue? That’s a first.”
“Oh, Miss Isabelle, I know you wouldn’t be interested. Never mind.”
“Okay,” I said. I was never one to pick something out of people that they didn’t want to tell.
“Well, since you begged me…” She grinned. “Stevie’s got this concert at school Thursday night. He’s got a solo—on the trumpet. You know he plays the trumpet?”
“How could I miss it, Dorrie? You’ve been telling me about it for three years, since he auditioned.”
“I know, Miss Isabelle. I’m kind of over-the-top proud when it comes to the kids. Anyway, would you like to come with me? To see him play?”
I thought about it for a minute. Not because there was any question whether I wanted to go, but because I was a little overcome. It took too long for me to find my voice.
“It’s okay, Miss Isabelle. Don’t feel like you have to. My feelings won’t be hurt and—”
“No! I’d love to. In fact, I can’t think of anything I’d rather do Thursday.”
