Saving CeeCee Honeycutt (36 page)

The chatter faded as everyone turned and watched me walk down the steps. My knees turned rubbery, and my pulse quickened. Before I knew what had happened, Aunt Tootie took hold of my hand and swept me into the fragrant crowd.

I was passed from one group of women to the next. My cheeks were pinched and kissed, and I was fawned over and made to turn in circles so they could get a good look at my dress. After a while I felt like one of those ballerinas that spin inside music boxes. I was called “darlin’” and “sugar” and “sweet peach” and “precious.” My heart was blessed too many times to count.

An elderly woman with cream-puff hair and droopy eyelids shuffled toward me. Countless strands of pearls circled her neck. Perched on her shoulder like a well-trained parakeet was a huge yellow brooch that glittered in the sunlight. She reached out and patted my arm. “I love your hair,” she said in a dry, papery voice. “When I was a young girl, I had long hair too.”

I liked her immediately.

Another woman pulled me aside. “Oh, my word. I can hardly believe it. You’re the spittin’ image of Bobbie-Lynn Calhoun when she was a young girl.”

I had no idea who she was talking about and didn’t ask because I couldn’t stop staring at the thick fringe of her false eyelashes.

Alone at a table beneath the striped canopy, looking as cool as the cucumber sandwich she was nibbling, sat Miz Goodpepper in a peachy-pink sundress. She winked at me and smiled. At the far end of the garden I noticed Louie the peacock standing in the shadows. He tilted his head from left to right, curiously watching the party from a safe distance.

Trays fi lled with all sorts of hors d’oeuvres were passed among the crowd, and a giant crystal punch bowl was fi lled with something called Long Island iced tea. The women flocked to that punch bowl like a 50 percent-off table at a department store. Whatever Long Island iced tea consisted of, it sure made these women happy. Even Oletta poured herself a glass of the golden elixir.

When I was finally able to sneak away from the crowd, I darted inside the house and went upstairs to my bedroom. After washing the gooey residue of kisses from my cheeks, I loaded my camera with a fresh pack of fi lm and headed downstairs.

On the patio sat a long dessert table draped in a scalloped-edged lace tablecloth that skimmed the ground. Its entire surface was smothered with cookies, cakes, and tiny tarts that were artfully arranged like a display in a bakeshop window. I put a lemon cookie and two petit fours on a napkin, then sat on a bench in a shady corner of the garden.

While I was savoring the treats in private, someone let out a joyous yelp. I turned to see Oletta throw her arms in the air and wave like she was flagging down a taxi.

In through the garden gate came Chessie and Nadine, dressed to the nines. To my stunned delight, shuffling behind them were Sapphire, Miz Obee, and Flossy. Cradled in each of Miz Obee’s arms was a pot of orchids. I jumped from the bench and bolted through the garden. When they saw me coming, they smiled. Even ornery old Sapphire gave me a sly, crooked grin. One by one I embraced them, feeling my chest swell with gladness. Miz Obee nodded furiously at my dress, indicating her overwhelming approval.

Aunt Tootie came up behind me, rested her hands on my shoulders, and thanked them all for coming. She took Sapphire by the arm and guided her to a table beneath the canopy. Within moments a server arrived with a tray of cool drinks. Miz Obee was puffed up with pride, smiling shyly when she presented Aunt Tootie with a pale pink orchid. Streaks of crimson, as thin as dental floss, disappeared into the flower’s deep, yellow-speckled throat. It was so beautiful it didn’t look real. Aunt Tootie made a fuss over it and exclaimed it was the most gorgeous orchid she’d ever seen. I ran to pull Mrs. Odell from the crowd, led her back to the table, and introduced her to everyone. Miz Obee’s cheeks flushed with pleasure when she offered a pot of yellow orchids to Mrs. Odell.

Mrs. Odell’s eyes grew bright. “Oh, thank you,” she said, lightly touching a petal. “It’s a living jewel.”

Before they settled at the table, I gathered everyone together so I could take a group picture. I blew on the photograph as I watched it develop in my hand. Within a minute or two, I was holding the finest picture I’d ever taken.

Aunt Tootie excused herself and headed for the house to check on things in the kitchen. I followed her, and when we stepped into the back hall, I reached for her arm and held her back. “How did you know?”

“You mean about Sapphire and her friends?” She cupped her hand beneath my chin. “I knew because Oletta told me. She said you were quite a hit with everyone at Green Hills Home.”

“I was?”

“Yes, you certainly were. So I asked Oletta if they’d like to come to your party, and they were delighted by the invitation. Chessie and Nadine are so kind and thoughtful, they offered to drive all the way out there and pick them up.”

Aunt Tootie looked into my eyes and smiled. “Cecelia Rose, you are one
very
popular young lady. Everyone thinks you’re so lovely. I can’t tell you how proud you’ve made me.”

Her words swirled around me like stars. Could it be that I, Cecelia Rose Honeycutt, the outcast from Willoughby, Ohio, had become
popular
? I hugged Aunt Tootie, marveling at the thought of it. What a gallant woman she was, swooping into my life and opening her heart and home to me, and never once had she asked for a thing in return. What I did to deserve her kindness, I’d never know.

I was fi lling a plate with cookies for everyone at the table when in through the garden gate waltzed Miz Hobbs. She was wearing a black hat and a disturbing yellow sundress printed with large black and red circles. Her rear end looked just like a giant bull’s-eye. When she saw me standing by the pastry table, she wiggled her way across the patio in those absurd itty-bitty steps she always took.

“Cecelia, I hardly recognized you all dressed up,” she said with exaggerated surprise, planting a kiss on my cheek. “What a beautiful dress. You look like a vanilla cupcake! Tootie always did have impeccable taste. But I must say I’m surprised you
still
haven’t gotten your hair cut. Remember what I told you about those awful hippies?”

“I’ll tell Aunt Tootie you’re here,” I said, wiping her lipstick from my cheek with a napkin.

As I started to walk away, Miz Hobbs turned to a woman in a yellow dress and said, “What in the world are all those nigras doing here! Has Tootie lost her mind?”

I was so mad I wanted to rip her lips off.

I settled at the table next to Mrs. Odell and glared at Miz Hobbs. She shimmied her way through the clusters of women with a plate of food in one hand and a drink in the other, nodding and sending kisses through the air like she was a movie star. When she sat at the table next to ours, Miz Goodpepper let out a sniff and angled her chair so her back was to Miz Hobbs.

“I’m in love with the live oaks,” Mrs. Odell said. “And I can’t wait to see the magnolias bloom in the spring. How beautiful they must be.”

Miz Goodpepper, who was fanning herself with her hat, raised her voice. “Oh, Gertrude, magnolia blossoms smell so delicious they’ll make your heart ache. I had a gorgeous magnolia in my garden, but while I was out of town this past spring, my evil neighbor
murdered
it.”

Miz Obee’s jaw dropped, Flossy scooted closer, and Sapphire looked at Miz Goodpepper like she’d lost her mind. Mrs. Odell swallowed a bite of cookie with a gulp. “Murdered your tree?”

“Yes,” Miz Goodpepper hissed, narrowing her eyes to slashes of blue. “She had it chopped down in cold blood.”

Miz Hobbs stiffened as Miz Goodpepper spewed out the story of the murdered magnolia. Miz Goodpepper’s voice was steeped in loathing when she said, “My neighbor is not only a lowly tree murderer but she also performs a striptease for one lucky member of the local police department.”

Everyone gasped. Well, everyone except Sapphire. She laughed.

Fueled by far too many Long Island iced teas, Miz Goodpepper leaned back and spoke over her shoulder, “So, tell us, Violene, how’s Earl? He’s about due for another spanking, isn’t he?”

Miz Hobbs jumped from her chair, eyes blazing. “
You bitch,
” she screamed through a mouthful of pâté. “So
you’re
the one who sent all those disgusting pictures and clever little notes!”

Miz Goodpepper rolled her eyes in an exquisite look of distaste. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I
do
know that Earl Jenkins sure does like it when you spank him, especially when you’re wearing that ludicrous chicken outfit.”

Miz Hobbs’s jowls shook with fury. She reached over, dragged her fingers through the pâté on her plate, and smeared it across Miz Goodpepper’s cheek.

With a smile as brief and deadly as a flash of lightning, Miz Goodpepper wiped it away with her napkin. “Well, Violene, this has just proved what I’ve known for twenty years. You can haul the girl out of the trash, but you can
never
haul the trash out of the girl.”

“You think you’re so damned lily-white and such an upstanding citizen? Well, I’ve got news. You are a sick exhibitionist—out there naked in broad daylight every Sunday morning, splashin’ around in that ridiculous outdoor bathtub of yours while the rest of us are getting ready for church.”

Miz Goodpepper smirked and rose to her feet. “Screaming
‘Oh, God!’
from your bed is the closest you have
ever
been to church.”

Aunt Tootie set off across the patio in a furious click of heels. “Now, y’all mind your manners and stop this nonsense right now.”

Miz Goodpepper snatched Miz Hobbs’s hat from her head and hurled it across the garden like a flower-studded Frisbee. Miz Hobbs lunged forward, grabbed a shoulder strap of Miz Goodpepper’s sundress with one hand, and started walloping her butt with the other. They spun in circles as the words “bitch” and “tramp” and “slut” exploded in the air like bottle rockets.

Everyone scrambled to get out of the way—well, everyone but Sapphire, who was enjoying the spectacle immensely. She stayed glued to her chair, cupped her old gnarled hands around her mouth, and hollered, “Get her, Thelma. Whup her ass real good.”

Miz Hobbs and Miz Goodpepper spun across the patio like a chiffon tornado, slapping and spanking each other. I could hardly believe it when Miz Goodpepper took hold of Miz Hobbs’s beaded necklace and attempted to strangle her, but the necklace broke in her hand and a clatter of glass beads rained down on the patio.

They shrieked like murder as they careened into the dessert table. Silver trays fi lled with cookies and petit fours flew into the air like birds fleeing a gunshot while Miz Goodpepper and Miz Hobbs tumbled to the ground.

Everyone stood, wide-eyed and speechless, as the two of them lay in a heap of crushed cookies and torn dresses. Aunt Tootie lifted a jagged piece of a broken cake plate from the ground and cried, “This belonged to Taylor’s mother!”

Miz Hobbs let out a painful groan and rolled on her back. She looked like she’d stepped on a land mine. Miz Goodpepper sat up, took one look at Miz Hobbs, and began to laugh. I was stupefied when she pulled herself up from the bricks, reached out, and offered to help Miz Hobbs get up. Miz Hobbs was so angry she slapped her hand away, which only made Miz Goodpepper laugh harder.

“Oh, stop it, Violene,” Miz Goodpepper said with a snort, offering her hand again. “It’s over. We just cleared up twenty years of bad karma. I feel thoroughly cleansed. This has been a spiritual enema.”

Everyone roared with laughter.

“Come on, Violene,” Miz Goodpepper said, “let’s go home.”

Miz Hobbs crawled to her knees. She reluctantly took hold of Miz Goodpepper’s outstretched hand and hissed under her breath, “Exhibitionist bitch.”

“Tree-murdering tramp,” Miz Goodpepper said with a laugh as she hauled Miz Hobbs to her feet.

Miz Goodpepper turned to my aunt. “I don’t know how I’ll ever make this up to you, Tootie, but I guarantee I’ll try.”

Aunt Tootie’s face was flushed with anger when she walked toward her eccentric neighbors, but her graciousness prevailed when she raised her hands and said, “It’s all right. What are a few broken dishes among friends? Now, y’all go on home and pull yourselves together.”

They limped across the patio in opposite directions, vaulting halfhearted insults at each other. Miz Goodpepper disappeared through the opening in the hedge while Miz Hobbs threw open the garden gate. The congregation of women laughed and clapped while Louie let out a squawk and strutted after Miz Goodpepper.

An elderly woman with a dowager’s hump and emerald earrings the size of gumdrops walked toward Aunt Tootie. “I never thought I’d live to see the day when
any
party could top the one I had back in ’37, but this one just did.”

Another woman laughed and said, “Tootie, you always have the
best
parties. I can’t wait to tell my sister Irene about it—she’ll be sick to death she missed it.”

Everyone began talking at once, telling stories of the party disasters they’d witnessed.

One woman told a story of a spectacular wedding catastrophe that involved a missing girdle and a “marvelously embarrassing” toast given by a drunken best man. The stories had everyone howling, each woman trying to top the story before hers.

While listening to the laughter swirl around me, the strangest thing happened: my whole world turned pink, and an effervescent kind of warmth fi lled me with a sense of belonging I’d never known.

I turned and looked at Aunt Tootie’s house, my gaze traveling to my sleeping porch, up to the huge trees, and into the bright Georgia sky. And as I stood there, soaking in the wonder of my new life, I knew Savannah was my home. I was safe here, I belonged, and I knew I always would.

As angry and hurt as I’d been when my father sealed my fate and sent me to live with Aunt Tootie, I knew he had spoken the truth when he’d said, “One day you’ll thank me for this. Believe me, you will.”