Georgia Bottoms (25 page)

“I always counted on you not to BS me.” Krystal laid a goblet on its side and twisted paper around the bowl. “I’ve withdrawn from the race, and resigned to Larry Withers on behalf of the council. You really helped me see the truth. I don’t need to put myself through all that crap just to lose to Madeline Roudy.”

“You might win,” Georgia said. “There’s still more white people than black in this town, right?”

“Did you forget I annexed them?” Krystal said. “They have two hundred and eighty-three more registered voters than we do. You’re looking at the last white mayor Six Points will ever
have. And that’s a good thing, I’m sure. They’ll do a better job for their folks than any of us ever did.”

“So you’re just going to quit?” Georgia said. “Quit and run away? Honestly, that does surprise me. I never thought of you as a quitter.”

“Oh stop it. You know that hokey stuff doesn’t work on me.” Krystal’s eyes shone behind her glasses.

“Krystal, why did you bring back those presents?” Georgia couldn’t help that her voice had gone soft and plaintive as a child’s. “I gave those things to you. You’re not supposed to give back presents just because you get mad at somebody.”

“That’s not how I meant it,” said Krystal.

“Well, that’s how it felt.” Georgia wanted to say how beautiful it was that Krystal saved all those presents through the years, but she didn’t.

“Just, I’ve got so much crap of my own,” Krystal said. “I’ll probably be in an apartment at first, I won’t have room for half my stuff, much less Mother’s… I’ve given away so much in the last two days.”

Georgia said, “Please don’t do this. I’ll pay ’em to put your stuff back.”

“Too late now,” said Krystal. “You’d better let me go, George. I’ve got a lot to do and these guys are charging by the hour.”

“Don’t tell me you’re gonna leave mad at me,” Georgia cried. “Tell me what to do, tell me what you want me to say.”

“Georgia. Please! I could never be mad at you. You just made me take off my rose-colored glasses, that’s all. You saw what was what, all along.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“It was never gonna happen,” Krystal said. “I’m a slow learner, that’s all.”

Ah. Georgia got it. That was one conversation she did not want to have. It could never lead anywhere good. She didn’t have those feelings for Krystal, and she never would. “That’s not really the reason you’re leaving.”

Krystal didn’t answer. She took a goblet from the shelf and rolled it in the paper.

Georgia said, “Where are you going, anyway?”

“Atlanta. Try my luck in the big city. I know a couple of women I can stay with till I find a place.”

“What about the stuff on the truck?”

“All going to storage,” said Krystal. “I’m traveling light this time.”

“Krystal, you and I need to talk about this. Finish up here, then come to the house. I’ve got part of a cake, I’ll make coffee. We’ll talk. Okay? I’ve been so crazy lately I haven’t even seen you.”

Krystal let herself smile. “That sounds good. Okay.”

“Just one thing I absolutely have to do first, then I’ll be at the house waiting for you.”

Krystal’s face fell. “Oh, I see.”

“See what?”

“Tell you what, Georgia, go on and run your very important errands. If I have time, I’ll stop by on my way out of town.”

“No. Don’t do this. Now listen to me—Mama flipped out and spent the night in jail, it’s a long story, all a big mistake but I’ve got to go get her out of there. Then I’m going straight home to wait for you, hear me? You promise you’ll come!”

“Your mother’s in
jail?
Georgia, what the hell are you doing talking to me? Go!”

“I thought you might leave without saying goodbye,” Georgia said.

Krystal shook her head. “I wouldn’t do that.”

On her way out the door Georgia remembered the speech she had practiced. “Hey, I love you, Krystal. If that makes any difference.”

Krystal didn’t look around. She tucked the ends of the paper into the goblet. “I know,” she said. “Me too.”

T
he courthouse was a Greek Revival palace with huge Ionic columns and a gleaming white dome, built by the wealthy cotton planters who owned the county before the Civil War. Every time Georgia walked up the marble steps, she felt as though she was entering the seat of a much grander county. Amazing to think that in antebellum times Six Points was one of the richest towns in Alabama. Things had been going downhill ever since. The courthouse had not been improved, beyond a fresh coat of white paint on the dome every few years. The clock in the portico hadn’t kept time since before Georgia was born.

The excited uproar of a school field trip echoed through the rotunda. Georgia climbed the staircase that curved up the wall. Kids thundered all over the second floor, peering into the glass cases at the same dusty Confederate flags that were on display when Georgia was a child.

She waved hi to the teacher, her old classmate Cindy Helms, and continued up the stairs to the jail. Some of the kids followed her with their eyes. No doubt they still liked to spook one another with stories of prisoners hanging themselves in the cells up there, ghostly images of their faces etched by lightning into the leaded windowpanes.

The third-floor landing opened onto a small lobby with plastic chairs for waiting, as at a dentist’s office. In the security glass of the window, Georgia had a dim double vision of a man in uniform.

The speaker crackled. “Can I help you?”

Georgia stated her name and why she was here. The deputy walked his eyes up and down her body while deciding whether to help. She gave him a generous smile.

Soon the deputy was buzzing Nathan into the waiting room. He appeared to be undamaged, still wearing his shiny drapey polyester basketball clothes with the black windbreaker zipped up to his neck.

“Where’s Mama?” said Georgia. Nathan shrugged.

She waved to get the attention of the man in the window.

The speaker crackled. “Yeah?”

“What about my mother?”

The deputy swiveled on his chair to talk to someone behind him. He leaned back to his microphone: “She’s refusing to come out.”

“What? Why?”

“She says she doesn’t have a daughter. Her daughter is dead.”

“The woman has dementia,” Georgia said. “Can you please let me talk to her?”

“No civilians allowed in here. Hang on.”

“Dayum,” said Nathan, “that ol’ lady is
pissed off
at you.”

Georgia turned. “Would you please sit down and let me handle this?”

“Say she gone write you out of her will, leavin’ us in here all night,” Nathan said, and when he saw her face: “Well? That’s what she say.”

“When did you talk to her?”

“All night long,” he said. “She don’t ever shut up. Told me all about you—all the trouble you used to get in, you was my age.”

Georgia was surprised the sheriff would put them together. Nathan said no, they were in cells facing across the hall. It was a small jail, he said.

“Smaller than the one in New Orleans?” Georgia watched for his reaction.

He started to answer, then cut his eyes at her. “What you think? I been in jail before?”

“Well, haven’t you?”

“Just visiting,” he said.

“Good. Glad to hear it,” said Georgia. “Let’s keep it that way.”

“Uh-huh.”

“But you have been arrested before,” she said.

The slouch went out of Nathan’s spine. Suddenly he stood about a foot taller. “What?”

“You heard me.”

“How you know that? Mamaw told you that?”

“I didn’t know for sure.” Georgia smiled. “But you just confirmed it.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Why you want to trick me for?” He scrunched his mouth into a narrow point and set it over on the side of his face—exactly the way Georgia did when she was vexed.

Until this moment she had never really felt it. She had known it in her head, but had never been physically touched by the idea that Nathan really was
her son.

She covered her mouth. She had an almost violent urge to throw her arms around him. She realized she’d been with him for two days and had not touched him once.

He stared at her. “What?”

“Oh,” she said, “oh God, oh Nathan I am sorry. You’re right. I really don’t want to trick you. Did they give you something to eat?”

“Yeah.”

“I bet you’re still hungry.”

He nodded.

The door buzzed behind them. Here came Little Mama with a uniformed man leading her by the arm. She brushed his hand off, and turned to Georgia. “It’s about goddamn time.”

The man said, “Take care, Little Mama,” and went back in the buzzing door.

Mama said, “Where the hell have you been?”

“Don’t you start on me! Haven’t I told you to leave that pellet gun in the closet?”

“I told them I didn’t have any damn daughter, my daughter must surely be dead if she’d leave me to rot in this goddamn hellhole all night.”

“Hush your mouth with that cussing,” said Georgia. “There’s children downstairs that can hear you.”

“I don’t give a damn if Billy Graham is down there,” said Little Mama. “I don’t care if the goddamn Pope in Rome is down there—”

“Okay Mama,” Georgia said loudly, “I get it.”

The speaker made a staticky click. “Miss Georgia, I need you to sign by your name there, if you would please.” The deputy slid out the steel drawer, with a clipboard. Georgia signed and put it back in the drawer with a friendly smile. The deputy grinned at her like a fool.

Georgia gathered her parolees and herded them down the stairs.

The schoolchildren were lined up double file along the wall, preparing to depart. They gawked at Nathan, the obvious prisoner in the group. One bratty-looking girl with straight-across bangs was really giving him the evil eye. Georgia fought the temptation to stick out her tongue.

Somehow Little Mama kept quiet until they were outside. Georgia was thinking how unfair it was that Mama never forgot anything you might actually want her to forget, like the fact that she’d spent the whole night in jail. Why couldn’t
that
slip her mind?

Nathan slunk along in their wake, bobbing his head to the beat of unheard music, silently declaring that he was not associated with the quarreling old white ladies. He seemed to love it when Little Mama cussed. He snickered at every Goddamn and Bullshit. It blew Georgia’s mind to think of the two of them talking all night. The boy must have gotten an earful. Good to see he was still amused by her.

The Honda was blazing hot in the noonday August sun. They groaned and complained even after she got the windows down, motor running, the A/C pumping out as much cool air as it could manage.

“There’s too much whining in this car,” Georgia said firmly. “I could use a little thanks from you two. You’d still be in there if it wasn’t for me.”

“I didn’t do nothin’ to get put in there in the first place,” said Nathan.

“Me neither,” said Little Mama.

“Mama! You slapped that deputy—twice!—and it was your stupid gun that shot the other one in the butt.”

Nathan cackled.

“Don’t you laugh, Nathan Blanchard. You’ll be lucky if they let you off without a criminal record.” In fact no charges had been brought against either of them. Georgia had confirmed that with the deputy before signing the paper.

“Aino Blanchit,” said Nathan.

“What?”

He repeated it until she understood,
I ain’t no Blanchard
.

Georgia tilted the mirror to see his face. “That was your daddy’s name.”

“That’s what you say,” said Nathan. “Ain’t never seen him. He ain’t never bothered to seen me.”

“Well then, what is your name?”

“Nothin’, I guess.”

She smiled. “Nathan Nothin? Nice to meet you.”

His expression was deeply serious. “I used to put Jordan, ’cause that’s Mamaw’s name.” He pronounced it as Eugenia had:
Jerdin
. “But I ain’t no Jordan neither.”

“You can be Nathan Bottoms if you want,” Georgia said.

He met her gaze in the rearview. “I don’t think so.”

Little Mama laughed. “Why would he want to use our name? He’s got a perfectly good name of his own.”

“Because,” Georgia said.

She felt Nathan’s eyes on the back of her neck. The correct answer was “Because he’s my son, Mama,” but she didn’t feel like getting into that right now. She hoped Nathan would understand. Or at least keep his mouth shut about it.

“Nathan’s going to have to spend another night with us, Mama. I’ll put him in the blue room again. I really need you not to call the police.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Beats me,” said Georgia, “but you did. That’s why the two of you spent the night in jail, remember?”

“I did nothing of the kind,” Little Mama said. “Nathan is a good boy.”

This announcement was as unexpected as Mama’s declaration of love for the Supremes. Georgia glanced at the mirror to find Nathan smirking at her, mocking her look of surprise.

“Yeah, we big friends now,” he said. “Ain’t we, Mama?”

Georgia turned to look at Little Mama. “Is that so?”

Mama said yes, it was. They had a lot in common. Both liked LSU and hated Tennessee. Both liked cornbread made from white meal, not yellow, with no sugar. Both liked Clint Eastwood movies except the one with the monkey. It was amazing, Mama said, two strangers having so much in common.

“You’re just trying to drive me crazy now,” Georgia said.

“Nuh-uh,” said Nathan. “Her and me
bonded
in there.”

“She and I,” Georgia said.

Considering Mama’s tendency to say “nigger” at the first opportunity, it was hard to imagine their friendship could last. For now, though, this was better than having them hate each other. Mama’s dementia was coming in handy after all. She was a little bit less like herself every day. Soon she would be a completely different person. Maybe Georgia would get along with her then.

At home, Georgia cooked up a big lunch of baked chicken, field peas, sliced tomatoes, pop-the-can biscuits with homemade fig preserves. Once Nathan got going on his eating, he had no further comment. Little Mama forgot how mad she had been, and scarfed down three of those biscuits.