Saving CeeCee Honeycutt (10 page)

I’d never heard of anyone dying from the blow of a mule’s hooves. I imagined an ornery mule letting out a deafening bray and hauling off and kicking the life out of her husband. The thought of it made me shudder.

“That’s awful, Oletta. Did the mule kill him on purpose, or was it an accident?”

She looked at me with the oddest expression and laughed. “Oh, child, mule-kick is liquor—you know,
booze
. Henry ain’t dead, least not far as I know. He was just lazy and drank too much. Couldn’t hold a job more than a few months at a time, so I had to throw him out of the house. That’s when I came to work for Miz Tootie. Been here twenty-nine years. Lord, time goes so fast.”

Oletta stretched her legs and sighed when she looked at her thick, broken-down ankles. “My legs keep telling me to retire, but I don’t see no sense in sittin’ around waitin’ for my final day. Besides, I like to cook, and Miz Tootie’s always been real good to me.” She took a sip of sweet tea and said, “Yes, she sure has treated me fine. Mr. Taylor did too, bless his sweet soul. I couldn’t have asked to work for finer folks, that’s for sure. I turned fi fty-five last May, and Miz Tootie gave me the whole week off with full pay. She said a double-nickel birthday was something to be celebrated by relaxing. So that’s just what I did. I was at home sitting on the porch when a truck pulled up. A man got out and said he was there to deliver a new color TV and a leather recliner chair. I told him he had the wrong address, but he said they was gifts from Miz Tootie.” Oletta leaned back and closed her eyes. “Best chair I ever did sit in. Every day I go home, sit myself down in that chair, and take a nice long nap.”

Just then I heard a rusty squeak. Through the row of open windows on the back wall of the garage, I saw a glint of light spark from Delilah’s wings as Aunt Tootie pulled the car in and parked. A moment later she came walking toward us at a brisk clip.

“Oh, we had such a productive meeting this morning,” she said, climbing the steps of the porch. “We’ve been trying to save the Pemberton place from that nasty wreckin’ ball for months, and we finally did.” She sat in a chair next to Oletta with a satisfied smile on her face.

“You mean that old house over by Lafayette Square?” Oletta said, furrowing her brow. “Lord, ain’t much left to save, is there?”

Aunt Tootie gazed across the garden. “It’s in critical condition, there’s no doubt about it, but that house is a wonderful example of Italianate architecture. Oh, you should see the moldings and balustrades. And the fireplaces are gorgeous beyond words. Today we got another sizable donation, and finally we’ve raised enough money to buy that wonderful old home.”

“What will you do with it, Aunt Tootie?”

“I hope we’ll find someone to buy it and have it rehabilitated.”

“Can I see it sometime?”

“Oh, I’d love to show it to you, sugar. As soon as we take possession and get the keys, I’ll take you over. And guess what else I did today? I went shopping for
you
. It was so much fun. Wait till you see what all I got. Will you help me with the bags?”

Together we hauled more than a dozen bags from the trunk of her car, lugged them upstairs to my room, and piled them on the bed. Aunt Tootie sat in the chair by the desk. “Open them up, honey. Let’s see how everything fits.”

Inside the first bag was a shoe box. I lifted the lid and peered down at a pair of dark blue sneakers with white laces.

“Red Ball Jets.” I was so excited I kicked off my scuffed-up loafers, sat on the floor, and put them on. All my life I’d dreamed of having a pair.

“Do they fit all right?”

I rose to my feet and walked around the room. “They’re perfect.”

I tore through the remaining bags and pulled out enough summer dresses to clothe all the debutantes in Georgia. And there were shorts, blue jeans, sweaters, T-shirts, underpants with flowers on the waistbands, and then there were jumpers, pajamas, and a pair of shiny black patent-leather party shoes. Inside the last bag was a large pale blue box.

Aunt Tootie clasped her hands beneath her chin, looking so excited that I couldn’t imagine what was inside. I removed the lid, unfolded the crisp tissue, and lifted out a fancy white party dress. When I got a good look at it, my throat tightened.

The dress in my hands was nearly identical to Momma’s pageant dress, just a miniature version.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” my aunt gushed, her eyes gleaming. “The moment I saw it in the window of Betsy’s Belles I had a fit over it. I just
had
to get it for you.”

A long-forgotten memory flashed through my mind.

It was a breezy spring day, the kind of day where the air is so fresh and clean it makes your nose tingle. Mrs. Odell and I had spent the entire morning turning the soil in her garden in preparation for planting. As we returned the tools to her shed, she invited me inside for a lunch of grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. But my socks were wet, my shoes were caked with mud, and my feet were cold. So I told her I’d run home, change my shoes and socks, and be back in a few minutes. As I approached the house, I heard the radio blaring from an open window. I left my shoes on the back steps and walked into the kitchen. Momma’s white pageant dress was draped over the ironing board. Whenever I saw that dress a siren went off in my head—Momma was in trouble.

I turned off the radio and glanced into the living room. Momma was standing on a hassock in front of the living room window, her face slathered with cold cream. She was talking into a wooden spoon as if it were a microphone.

Other than the fuzzy yellow slippers on her feet, she was totally naked. This was a stunt I hadn’t seen before, and desperation clawed its way up my spine. I bolted to the front widow and pulled the curtains closed. “Momma! Get down from there,” I said, grabbing her hand and all but yanking her off the hassock. “For Pete’s sake, put some clothes on!”

Her eyes blazed with outrage. She threw the spoon on the floor and screeched, “You just
ruined it
!”

“Ruined what?”

She pushed past me, ran up the stairs, and slammed her bedroom door.

When she was like this, there was nothing I could do. I was about to head back to Mrs. Odell’s when I thought,
Oh no. What if Momma stands in front of her bedroom window and somebody sees her!

I dashed up the stairs.

As I knocked on her door, begging her to let me in, I realized I had just taken my father’s place: there I was, standing outside her locked bedroom door, frustrated and helpless and just plain tired. Tired of it all.

Aunt Tootie’s voice startled me. “Sugar, is something wrong?”

“No,” I said, plastering a smile on my face. “Everything’s fine. I’m just so . . . so happy. Thank you for all these pretty clothes and shoes.” I averted my eyes and picked up a shoe box.

“You’re welcome. I had so much fun picking everything out. I know I should have taken you with me, but I wanted it to be a surprise.”

While we hung my new dresses in the closet, my aunt said, “Would you like to go out for dinner and a movie tonight?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I just love a good movie,” she said, smoothing the skirt of a pale yellow sundress before hanging it in the closet. “Did your mother take you to movies?”

“No. But Mrs. Odell did a few times.”

“What kinds of fun things did you and your mother do together?”

I just stood there, staring blankly at my aunt. What was I to say—that living with Momma was about as much fun as living with a hurricane stuffed in the closet?

Aunt Tootie grew quiet and studied me. “Honey,” she said, cupping her hand beneath my chin, “I don’t want to pry, but I think we need to talk about your mother.”

I looked away. “Not now, please?”

She hesitated, then rested her hand on my shoulder. “All right. But soon.”

After gathering the empty bags, she stepped toward the door. “I’ll go look at the newspaper and see what movies are playing.”

After she left the room, I got down on my knees and pulled Momma’s scrapbook from its hiding place beneath the mattress. I flipped to the page that held the glossy eight-by-ten color picture that was taken when she was crowned Vidalia Onion Queen. I was right. The party dress Aunt Tootie had bought me was eerily similar to Momma’s pageant dress: crisp white with a full gathered skirt, sleeveless, scoop neck, and a zipper up the back. It even had layers of crinoline petticoats. The only real difference I could see was that Momma’s dress didn’t have a sash at the waist and mine did.

Momma had been wearing that dress on the day she died, and though her casket had been closed, I imagined she was still wearing it, along with her red shoes, when she was lowered into the ground. It wasn’t a vision I could wipe easily from my mind.

I closed the scrapbook and shoved it back under the mattress.

As I smoothed the comforter into place, terrifying thoughts bumped around in my head.
What if the dress Aunt Tootie bought me is an omen of the worst possible kind? Has Momma’s illness been passed down to me? Am I genetically doomed? Will it only be a matter of time before my mind corrodes like hers did?

Wanting the dress as far from sight as possible, I walked to the closet and pushed it all the way to the end of the pole, then I rearranged and fluffed up my other dresses so it all but vanished behind cotton prints, checks, and stripes. With any luck, maybe Aunt Tootie would forget all about it.

F
riday was a busy day in Aunt Tootie’s house. She was out the door before eight o’clock in the morning to attend a special meeting of the Historic Savannah Foundation. Around nine-thirty, a light blue van rumbled its way down the alley behind the house and parked next to the garage. Two men came through the garden gate, one carrying hedge clippers and a tote bag fi lled with gardening tools, the other pushing a lawnmower. Within minutes I heard the
snip, snip
of the clippers, and soon the roar of the lawnmower rolled in through the open windows, growing loud, then soft, then loud again as it was pushed up and down the yard.

Oletta was busy too. With the fan humming at the kitchen ceiling, she was baking bread and cinnamon rolls for Aunt Tootie and me to eat over the weekend. Though I’d lived in this big old house for only a few days, already Oletta and I had established a morning routine. As sweet, yeasty aromas fi lled the air, I’d sit on a stool by the chopping block and read aloud to Oletta from one of my Nancy Drew books.

“That Nancy Drew sure is smart,” Oletta said, shaping bread dough into a pan. “You read real good too—got yourself a nice voice.”

Her words made me blush. “I’ve read this book so many times I know it by heart. I looked at the books in Aunt Tootie’s library, but they all seem kinda boring.”

She slid a bread pan into the oven. “Most all them books was Mr. Taylor’s, rest his sweet soul. Too bad you never got the chance to meet him—finest man I ever did know. A real gentleman.” She shook her head. “They don’t make ’em like him no more.”

“What did he die from?”

“Heart attack,” she said, leaning over the stove to set the timer. “He passed away sittin’ in his favorite chair in the library. Oh, how that man loved to read. Every night after supper he’d sit himself down and read till bedtime.”

Oletta headed for the pantry, and I slid off the stool and followed. “How did he get so rich?”

“Mr. Taylor bought a lot of land in Florida way, way back,” she said, lifting a sack of flour from the shelf. “When he sold it, he made himself bushels of money. He had something to do with mining too, not coal, but them big stone quarries. He was a powerful man and a kind, kind soul. Usually them two things don’t go together.”

We returned to the kitchen and I held the canister steady so Oletta could pour in the flour. “Most of the books in the library are history books. He must have liked history a lot.”

Oletta nodded. “He sure did. But I don’t think none of them books would be anything you’d like. Later this afternoon I’ll walk you down to the public library. I’m sure they got lots of books for children.” She looked at me and winked. “Even real smart ones like you.”

From behind me a woman spoke—had it been a color, her voice would have been a velvety shade of purple. “No need to go to the library.”

I looked over my shoulder and sucked in my breath. It was like the universe had cracked wide open. Poised in the doorway, one perfectly manicured hand on her hip and the other resting on the doorjamb, was the reigning empress of some strange, exotic land. Though she’d long since passed the zenith of youth, unmistakable remnants of a mysterious beauty oozed from the pores of her porcelain-white skin. Swirling around her ankles, as light as smoke and the color of midnight, was a silk caftan splashed with bits of silver glitter. Her wavy red hair was pinned high on top of her head like the plumage of an alien bird.

“I have a library in my house that doesn’t get a lick of attention except for an occasional dusting,” she said from the reddest lips I’d ever seen. “You’re welcome to come have a look and borrow anything you’d like.” She smiled a slow, catlike smile. “I take it you must be Cecelia.”

Oletta grinned. “How you doin’, Miz Goodpepper? This here child is Cecelia Rose Honeycutt, Miz Tootie’s grandniece. And Cecelia, this is Miz Thelma Rae Goodpepper, she lives next door.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Cecelia,” she said, floating toward me in a pair of silver lamé slippers. She extended her hand, and perched on her right pointer finger was a deep green ring the size of a walnut.

I didn’t know if I should kiss her ring or curtsy. Finally I took hold of her outstretched hand and managed to push out the words “Thank you.”

Her blue eyes twinkled. “And like I said, please come over and go through my library. I have thousands of books, and I’m sure you’d find several to your liking.”