To Be Where You Are

by Jan Karon

  It didn’t take hardly a minute for him to get mad at th’ Grinch for hatin’ Christmas. An’ nobody even knowed a good reason why!

  ‘That’s ’cause they ain’t a good reason!’ he shouted to his book.

  Grace had said, ‘You will not like it at first. You must keep reading and then you will like it.’

  Him an’ his mama had been crazy about Christmas, though they never had a tree but one time. They got their fill of Christmas trees on TV. Right after Halloween, you turned on th’ TV and there was Christmas trees and Santy Clauses pilin’ up. They seen colored lights and white lights, an’ heard carols an’ sleigh bells an’ whatnot, ’til by th’ time Christmas come around, they was both wore out.

  ‘We don’t need no Christmas tree,’ his mama said. ‘All a tree does is catch f’ar an’ burn th’ house down.’ She had told him this since he was little, and never had he seen anybody’s house burn down at Christmas. It was more like Easter when their neighbor’s house caught f’ar, but they put it out an’ kep’ on livin’ there.

  As he read, the tree in the window shone its many-colored lights onto the street. It was as tall as the big window, which reached nearly to the ceiling, and dressed with forty-two strings of lights and more than two hundred ornaments and seven boxes of gold tinsel, and small candles that winked and glimmered like the real thing.

  There had never been an official town tree. Instead, what was generally called ‘the war monument’ was decorated with lights. That was a very good thing and the council was keen to keep it that way. But as anyone would tell you, ‘the bookstore tree’ was a town favorite. All year long, the big upstairs window was as blank as paper, and then on the night of December first, the blank became a radiance of color and light that illuminated the street and reflected on the hoods of cars and when it rained, turned puddles into patches of crimson and sapphire, amber and emerald.

  ‘Awesome!’ was Shirlene Cunningham’s take on the tree.

  ‘Thrilling!’ said Dr. Harper, recently returned from South Sudan.

  Lois Burton admitted that it made her cry, but not sob or anything, when the lights came on.

  From where he sat, he could look up an’ see th’ tree about three yards from his sock feet. An’ people on the street passin’ by, they could look up an’ see th’ tree! He felt the intimacy of this shared experience in a way he couldn’t put into words.

  He shook his head, read on. Cars passed. Rain whispered at th’ windowpanes.

  In a little bit, he come to th’ part where th’ Grinch got a idea! Th’ book called it a wonderful, AWFUL idea!

  He slammed the book shut and laid it on the table next to his chair and set th’ candy jar on top. That was a close call; he had nearabout let hisself read what th’ wonderful, awful idea was. He did not like to do what you call gobble a book, he would read that part tomorrow night. Yessir, he would make his last picture book last.

  Father Tim told him th’ other day that everybody needed three things:

  Somebody to love—he had Grace and her mama an’ daddy an’ Sister Louise an’ all manner of people who come in th’ bookstore.

  Somethin’ to do—look at th’ job he had, livin’ up here like he was ol’ Croesus hisself.

  An’ somethin’ to look forward to—as for that part, he had solved it by always, always keepin’ a good book underneath his candy jar.

  SATURDAY, DECEMBER 5

  She had her coffee, he had his tea; they had their Advent reading.

  Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, ‘This is the way; walk you in it.’

  • • •

  Grace stopped by the office of her dad, the chaplain, to give him a hug and a cookie from home.

  ‘You are amazing,’ said her dad for the hundredth time. She smiled big to show off where she had lost a tooth three days ago.

  Then she took the elevator, which opened next to room 101.

  She looked in and saw that Miss Louella’s eyes were closed, but she wasn’t snoring.

  ‘If she’s sleeping,’ said a nurse, ‘wake her easy.’

  Grace went to the blue recliner and leaned close to Miss Louella’s ear. She liked Miss Louella’s safe, happy smell of hand lotion and face powder. She was going to say I’m here, Miss Louella, but what she really wanted to say was I’m here, Grandma. When she opened her mouth, out came the strangest thing:

  ‘I’m here, Miss Grandma!’

  She could have fainted from embarrassment. Miss Louella did not know she had been secretly adopted as her grandma. What if Miss Louella did not want to be her grandma?

  Miss Louella opened her eyes and looked at her and smiled the biggest smile she ever saw.

  ‘What you say?’

  Her heart pounded. ‘I said I’m here, Miss Grandma.’

  Louella laughed. When she laughed, her body shook all over. ‘Say it again, honey!’

  ‘I’m here, Miss Grandma!’ Oh, her face was burning hot, but she said it big this time because of the happy laugh it got.

  ‘From this day on, that gon’ be my favorite name fo’ myself! Miss Grandma!’ Louella laughed some more and held out her hand and drew Grace close. ‘I be yo’ grandma an’ you be my baby!’

  Grace did not want to be a baby; she was not a baby at all. But it would be okay to be Miss Grandma’s baby, it would be okay. She shivered a little with a certain happiness.

  ‘You loss a tooth!’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘I give you a dime fo’ you leave. You here to write my story down?’

  ‘I have one whole hour, then I have to go to the Christmas parade.’

  ‘I hope you bring me some candy if you catch any.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am, I will.’

  ‘Sit on th’ stool, then. What us gon’ talk about?’

  ‘Everything, Mama said.’

  ‘Everything?’ Louella gave Grace a look. ‘You gon’ take notes?’

  ‘I don’t know how to take notes. But I will listen really hard.’

  ‘Miss Sadie, when she was talkin’ on th’ phone to her money man, she take notes. She know ’xactly what he’s sayin’, uh-huh.’

  ‘I tried at home and can’t write as fast as people talk, but I have a great memory, I promise. My dad says so.’

  ‘Where we gon’ start?’

  ‘I think you just start anywhere? And things work out?’ She posed this as a question because she honestly did not know.

  Louella rearranged the knit shawl over her knees and leaned back in the recliner.

  Grace caught her breath. A story was like opening a door; you never knew what you would find on the other side.

  ‘My mama was China Mae an’ my daddy, he was Soot. Soot Tobin. Black as soot, is how he got his name. He lived in Atlanta, Georgia, and worked in Mitford every summer.’

  Louella closed her eyes, as if she was fixing to tell the story to herself.

  ‘I never knew my daddy, but oh, how I wish I did. They say he wore a long black coat an’ bow tie an’ white gloves, to serve dinner at th’ Boxwood House. You too young to know that Boxwood House used t’ stan’ down where th’ Baptists is.

  ‘They say my daddy was a han’some man. He could drive a Packard car, mos’ any thing wit’ wheels, even a bicycle. He had his own bicycle with a basket on it for food shoppin’. They say he come down Main jus’ a-flyin’, with his coattails standin’ out behin’. He could cook, speak words in French, fix a car motor, an’ preach at th’ colored church. My daddy stuttered pretty bad, so his sermons ran long. But they say it was worth whatever it took, as he preached with a mighty conviction. Some say he was anointed.

  ‘They had a little church back then
jus’ for colored, it wadn’t big as this room. Ten colored come up th’ mountain in th’ summer with their white families, so it was enough people fo’ a church. My daddy’s white family built it down yonder where th’ Methodists is now. They was good people, name of Thompson, had a daughter Lureen. When her mama an’ daddy passed, she gave my daddy their Packard car, free an’ clear. He drove it to Atlanta, Georgia, an’ never came back. It was a sad thing how they passed.’

  ‘How did they?’ She did not like to say the words pass and die.

  ‘Miss Lureen’s mama and daddy fell off a rock an’ was killed outright. Th’ rock was tall as a chimbley, you had to climb a real high bank on one side to git out on it. It had a flat place on top over a gorge that went halfway to China. I seen that rock many times. They was havin’ a picnic up there an’ maybe not payin’ attention. But some say they held hands an’ jumped.’

  ‘Jumped?’

  Grace’s eyes behind her round glasses was big as silver dollars. Louella realized there were things she could not tell this child—things too dark and heavy for a child to carry.

  ‘That was just talk, honey, Lord Jesus, I shouldn’t said it. Those good people didn’t jump a’tall, it was a accident. Nossir. They was happy people.’

  Grace breathed out.

  ‘My little mama—she was a pretty woman an’ a good woman, everybody say that. Miss Sadie’s mama say she was slow in her mind, like a child. My mama was my bes’ friend next to Sadie.’

  A nurse peered in, waved to Grace. ‘Miss Louella, time for your pain meds.’

  ‘Go on away,’ said Louella. ‘I got comp’ny now. Young Grace be my meds.’

  Grace sat up taller on the stool.

  ‘I was jus’ a baby when I got another kind of mama. She wadn’t but fo’ years older than me.’

  Grace scooted to the edge of the stool. This was the part she liked.

  ‘She was th’ onliest child of th’ white folks my mama worked fo’. Sadie Baxter took me on as her own, yes she did, said I was her baby sister.’

  Louella was smiling with her eyes closed. ‘She gave me a bath in a tub big enough for a Packard car, cornrowed my hair, let me play with her beautiful dolls. Oh, law, her dolls were th’ prettiest things I ever seen. I said I want to be like this doll whose name was Annie. Sadie say you want to be like this doll, we got to straighten yo’ hair. You never seen such a mess! Used vinegar an’ lard. Lord help us, I was ruint.

  ‘I cried, yes I did, jus’ bawled. I said I ain’t gon’ be yo’ baby sister no more ag’in!’

  Louella and Grace laughing.

  ‘Then Sadie, she cried, too. She say, oh, please, I won’t do it no more, you cain’t jus’ up an’ quit bein’ my sister, that’s ag’in th’ law!

  ‘So I say okay, an’ we went off an’ cooked us a supper of acorns and clover tops in our little playhouse in th’ orchard. Her daddy had Mister Ned make us a playhouse with a chimbley on th’ side an’ what they call a Dutch door.’

  ‘Tell about the red wagon!’

  ‘Th’ red wagon got a happy story an’ a sad story, both. Which you want?’

  ‘Both!’ said Grace.

  Louella’s eyes closed again. She let out a long breath.

  ‘Not many colored was in these hills back then. Colored don’ generally like mountains. Too cold. Too hid back. Hard to earn a livin’. No, you got to go to a town where th’ jobs is. So colored was rare in Mitford back in th’ day, ’cept for them who come up in th’ summer.

  ‘October after th’ leaves turned, th’ white fam’lies an’ their help went back where they come from an’ I was th’ only dark skin on this mountain. Some people here was bad to call me by a ugly name. Start with a n. You know it, honey?’

  She knew the bad word people used to say. Somebody said it in her class just last week and got sent home. She thought being sent home was a treat; the person should have been sent to the principal or made to eat worms.

  ‘You can use that word to let people know how it was back then. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with th’ word itself, it come off of th’ word negro, is all, which is Spanish fo’ black. It’s a ugly word ’cause of the mean spirit behind it. It was said all th’ time to me fo’ I moved to be with my grandma in Atlanta. You can let people see how it was back then.’

  Grace didn’t know how she could possibly write all this down. She did not know it would be so much. But Miss Grandma had lived a long time, which was why it was so much.

  She would have to do what they talked about in her favorite magazine, Stone Soup. She would have to edit.

  • • •

  I ain’t never played Santy,’ Coot said to Hamp Floyd.

  ‘Nothin’ to it. Ride on th’ truck, throw out th’ candy, wave to everybody. Piece of cake.’

  The phone call from th’ chief had come early this morning at th’ bookstore. He’d been amazed that somebody was callin’ him on th’ phone, which nobody ever did. He had walked down to the station, not knowin’ what was goin’ on.

  ‘We’ll be ridin’ you on th’ cover of th’ hose bed behind th’ cab. We got a Santy chair we rig on th’ cover every year. That sets you up pretty high, so people can see you comin’.’

  ‘How about you play Santy?’ he asked the chief.

  ‘I’m too low to th’ ground for that suit. It’s perfect for you, an’ you’re perfect for th’ part. Me an’ th’ wife saw you play Saint Nick down at th’ bookstore one year. You nailed it.’

  Coot nodded, sick with fear.

  ‘Clovis did a lot of research on Santy Claus. Said Saint Nick was th’ start of Santy, sack an’ all. You’re in.’

  The fire chief said this as if it was law. End of discussion.

  ‘Here’s what you do,’ said Hamp. ‘Say Ho ho ho and throw candy. Simple. A baby could do it. Try sayin’ it. Loud.’

  ‘Ho ho ho,’ said Coot.

  ‘No, no. LOUD!’

  ‘HO HO HO!’

  ‘Good. Real good. There’s no pay in this, it’s volunteer, okay? As in volunteer fire department.’

  Coot went to the back room where the firemen were suiting up. He carried the red garb, which had been sent over by Clovis’s oldest boy.

  A fireman slapped him on the back, whop! ‘Get y’r red on, Buddy. We’re rollin’ out of here in twenty minutes.’

  He went into a stall and took off most of his clothes but kept on his I’d Rather Be in Mitford T-shirt and his drawers and socks and lace-ups. It was freezin’ in here.

  ‘Here’s your sack of candy.’ The chief stuck his head into the stall and handed off a heavy burlap sack. ‘Compliments of th’ mayor’s office. Bring it back empty, an’ wear your britches under your Santy suit. You’ll thank me.’

  He pulled his britches back on. And his undershirt an’ sweater, while he was at it, an’ his jacket. Santy would look extra fat.

  The chief stuck his head in again. ‘Every once in a while, touch your finger to th’ side of your nose. Like this.’ The chief touched his finger to the side of his nose.

  ‘Why?’ said Coot.

  ‘Beats me, it’s somethin’ Clovis liked to do.’

  The costume smelled like popcorn or maybe chili dogs. And the boots were not real, they were thin as a paper bag. His hands was shakin’ as he pulled ’em on over his lace-ups.

  He was buttonin’ the fur-trimmed jacket when somehow the fog started liftin’ inside of his head. He could picture Santy settin’ up on th’ yellow fire truck—an’ it was him! Him, Coot Hendrick, the great-great-great-great-great-grandson of th’ man who rode up th’ mountain with his English bride settin’ behind him on his horse, and founded th’ town of Mitford.

  The notion of all this struck him so profoundly that he sat for a moment on the chair in the stall and whispered what Father Tim told him to say when he felt grateful but couldn’t find words.

 
‘Jesus.’

  • • •

  Town was packed, cars bumper to bumper, and the great maw at Main and Wisteria was commemorated only by a fresh patch of asphalt.

  Alleluias rang from the town speaker system; store windows advertised a sale, a special promo, or the traditional free cider and cookies for parade day.

  STEP IN AND WARM UP, read the hand-printed sign on the door of the Woolen Shop. No promises for anything more than seventy-two degrees Fahrenheit.

  FREE CIDER AND COOKIES was Sweet Stuff’s marketing ploy.

  HOT CIDER AND COOKIES was the deal at Dora Pugh’s hardware.

  CIDER, COOKIES, AND A JOKE, read the sign at Village Shoes. ‘It’s a one-up,’ said Abe.

  • • •

  At the Local, Hank and his family were seated to the right of the sign on the roof, waving to anybody who would look their way. Otis had warned Hank that it would be a really big insurance problem if anybody fell off. ‘I hope you’ll remember that,’ he said, giving Hank a look. He did not want a tragedy occurring on his watch.

  Otis was running things today. Th’ preacher hadn’t been much account since he came in at seven-thirty; he was excited as a kid. ‘Ants in his pants,’ said Lisa.

  ‘We got you covered, Father.’ Otis was proud to say it.

  ‘You go on with your family,’ said Lisa.

  Go on with your family. Yes! He grabbed his jacket off the coatrack. He was out of there.

  • • •

  Jake Tulley smiled the smile reserved for the customer rollin’ out of his showroom in a brand-new ride, but Jake Tulley did not like the idea of hitching his Escalade ESV to something with the square footage of a cattle car. This was a deal for a Dodge Ram, not a Cadillac.

  ‘Only for you, Father,’ he told the priest. ‘Only for you.’

  ‘You’re the best, Jake!’ He had to shout over the hubbub. ‘The best!’

  The Baptist parking lot was a spasm of kids, stressed-out parents, dogs in costume, crazed volunteers, tricycles, MPD, two llamas, and tourists who had stumbled on the circus at the assembly site.