“You ever hear from Melinda?”
“Not in a long, long time. Last I heard, she was living out west someplace. Oregon, maybe. She’d read a piece I’d written when I was working at The Charlotte Observer, and it went out on the Associated Press wire. She saw it in a paper out west and sent me a postcard, care of the paper. A postcard, for God’s sake!”
“She’s broken your grandmama’s heart so many times, I can’t believe it’s still beating,” Winnie said sadly. “She still believes Melinda might come home any day now.”
She pointed at the ancient black rotary phone that had been hanging on the wall by the pantry for as long as Conley could remember. “Every time that phone rings, she jumps up, hoping and praying it’s your mama on the other end,” Winnie said. “Ain’t nobody calling on that landline except rip-off artists and people selling time-shares in Mexico, but you can’t tell Lorraine that.”
Conley nodded. “That sounds right.”
She’d initiated the conversation about her mother, but suddenly she couldn’t stand to be in this kitchen, with that phone and her grandmother’s heartbreak, for one more minute. She looked around the room and spotted Opie snoozing on his bed near the air-conditioning vent.
She found his leash hanging on a nail by the back door. “Come on, Opie,” she said, kneeling beside him. “Let’s go for a walk.”
Opie opened one bloodshot eye, snuffled, then returned to slumbering.
“A walk?” Winnie said with a hoot. “Only thing that spoiled mutt wants is a nap and a treat.”
“He’s had way too many treats,” Conley said, poking the dog’s generous flank. “Jack Russells aren’t supposed to be this fat.” She clipped the leash to his collar and gave a gentle tug. “Come on, boy, let’s go.”
The dog struggled to his feet and gave her an expectant look. She gave the leash another tug, and he plopped down on his haunches.
“He won’t move a muscle without a treat,” Winnie advised. She went to the Donald Duck cookie jar on the counter, reached in, and pulled out a dog biscuit, then handed it to Conley. “Carrot and stick,” she said, nodding. “Wave it under his nose and start walking. Works every time with old men, mules, and dogs.”
5
She started off at a slow, even jog but hadn’t made it to the end of the block before Opie went out on strike, plopping down onto his belly, his legs splayed out beneath him.
“Come on, boy.” She yanked at the leash, and in response, he lowered his head to the sidewalk.
She gave the leash another tug. “Come on, Opie! Let’s get moving.”
In desperation, she waved a dog treat under his nose. He looked up, his dark eyes showing a glimmer of interest. She moved the treat at arm’s length from his snout.
“Carrot and stick, buddy,” she said as he clambered to his feet. “Carrot and stick.”
In the end, they reached a compromise. Opie agreed to walk at an agonizingly slow pace, and she agreed to reward his progress with a snack every so often.
She twitched the leash impatiently as the old dog trailed along in her wake. Conley had been a woman in motion her whole life, always speeding toward her next deadline, next job, next relationship. She was unused to walking anywhere.
It wasn’t even noon yet, but already the oppressive coastal Florida heat and humidity settled over her shoulders like a suffocating cloak.
The rubber soles of her running shoes slapped on the hot concrete, and the slow pace forced her to look up and down the street where she’d spent so much of her childhood.
Woodlawn had always been a wealthy neighborhood that lived up to the name, with live oaks and crape myrtles lining the streets, thickly carpeted lawns, hedges of blooming hibiscus, and poisonous but pretty pink and white oleanders. The air was perfumed with the confederate jasmine that clambered up brick foundations and wrapped tendrils around lacy wrought iron columns and trim.
Two blocks down from G’mama’s house, the sprinklers were on in the front yard of the handsome two-story colonial that had once belonged to the Snyders. Kristin Snyder had been her best friend until the start of eighth grade, when Conley had been packed off to the same Virginia boarding school her grandmother and mother had attended.
Who lives here now? Conley wondered idly, prodding Opie with the toe of her sneaker to get him moving again.
As her walk took her farther from home and closer to the center of town, a distance of less than a mile, the tree-shaded blocks of Woodlawn transitioned to a slightly shabbier neighborhood, with one-story concrete block homes on smaller lots. Lacking the shade of the tree canopy, she could feel the heat of the asphalt street beneath her shoes.
She guided Opie off the street and onto the grassy verge, where he stopped and took a long time to pee on a telephone pole. While she waited, thunder rumbled overhead, where an ominous tower of pillow-shaped dark clouds were gathering. Fat, warm droplets of rain began to pelt her bare shoulders, and steam rose up from the sunbaked asphalt.
Should she try to run for home? Or keep moving? Opie looked up at her expectantly. She realized that they were only a block from the Beacon building. Maybe she’d drop in on her sister and tell her, face-to-face, about the change in plans. She scooped the dog into her arms and began to run through the rain toward the newspaper offices.
* * *
Grayson glowered at her from across her cluttered desktop. “That’s the worst idea I’ve ever heard. Did you not hear a word I said this morning?”
“Hmm?” Conley was staring out the open door of her sister’s office and into the newsroom of her family legacy—The Silver Bay Beacon.
Or what passed as a newsroom. It still held eight hulking metal tanker desks that had been in the office for as long as Conley could remember, but only two of the desks seemed occupied. The rest were piled high with what looked like decades’ worth of broken or outdated equipment—ancient manual Underwood typewriters, bulky beige IBM Selectrics, office chairs missing backs or casters, stacks of phone books, and dusty black rotary telephones.
Conley dropped Opie’s leash, and the dog immediately sought shelter beneath her chair. “You thinking of opening a museum out there, Gray?”
“Cute,” Grayson said. “You’re really cute, little sister. But don’t try changing the subject on me.” She slumped down into her chair. “I told you this morning, it’s not a good idea having G’mama and Winnie out at the beach just now. Winnie won’t say anything, but I know for a fact that she’s in constant pain with her hip. Her nephew flat out told me he wants her to quit working, but Winnie won’t listen. As for G’mama—you do realize she’s in her eighties now, right? She’s started falling. So far, she hasn’t broken anything, but it’s just a matter of time.”
“Fifteen miles just isn’t that far, Gray. And I’ll be right there. If either of them needs to come into town to see a doctor or whatever, I can do that. And besides, G’mama wants to be out at the beach. You should have seen her face today when I told her I’d help her pack and get the house opened up. She was like a kid, skipping around, making plans. Winnie too. This is what they want. It’s what they’ve been doing their whole lives. You can’t take that away from them just because they’re getting older.”
Grayson braced both hands on the desktop. “You think you can just parachute in here and fix things, right? You get to be the golden girl who gives G’mama what she wants, and I get to be the bitchy sister, the killjoy who always says no. But what happens to them when you get bored out at the beach? What happens when you get a new job? You’ll be out of here like a shot, and I’ll be the one making the midnight runs out to the beach—or God forbid, to the emergency room.” Her smooth olive skin was flushed with anger. “What? No answers? I thought you always had all the answers.”
“You never told me G’mama has been sick,” Conley said, her voice low. “You didn’t tell me she’d fallen until this morning. Or that you were worried about her health. Or Winnie’s.”
“What would you have done if you’d
known?” Grayson demanded. “Would you have dropped everything and come running? Give me a break! You didn’t even come home for Christmas this year.”
“I was working,” Conley said. It sounded feeble, even to her.
“Working at what? Proving to the world how awesome you are? Proving you don’t need anybody? Can you even remember the last time you came home to see your family for more than a day or two?”
“Dad’s funeral,” Conley said, without hesitation. “I was home for a week when Dad died. It was all the time the paper would give me.”
“Six years ago,” Grayson said. “Dad’s been gone six years, and since that time, you haven’t spent more than a weekend here.”
Conley opened her mouth to protest, but her sister was right. She hadn’t been home, and it wasn’t because she couldn’t get away.
The hurt and shock of her father’s death, not just the loss of his steady, reassuring presence in their lives but the how and the why of it that she’d never shared with anyone, had filled her with dread every time she’d returned home.
Grayson was watching, waiting for Conley to make yet another lame excuse. Then she glanced at her watch, stood abruptly, opened the office door, and poked her head out. “Lillian!” she called. “Michael?” Her words echoed around the high-ceilinged room. “Where the hell is everybody?”
“Quit your hollerin’,” the answer came. A petite, compact-bodied black woman emerged from the newsroom’s outer office. Her short hair was salt and pepper gray, and she wore a flowing, tentlike yellow-and-black-striped dress.
“Lillian, do you happen to know where Michael is?” Grayson demanded, pointing up at the clock on the wall. “Don’t we have a staff meeting scheduled for right now?”
“We do,” the receptionist replied calmly. “But there’s a big freight train derailed over in Varnedoe. Chemical spill, according to Buddy Bright. I heard it on the radio and called up Michael, told him to get on over there.”
“Hello?” A woman’s voice called from the outer office. “Hellooooo! Where is everybody?”
“Jesus, take the wheel,” Lillian whispered.
“Yoo-hoo, Grayson, honey. I’m here.” A spritely woman with a cottony puff of snow-white hair made her way into the editor’s office, her walking stick cocked at an insouciant angle. She wore a pale pink polyester suit that had seen better days, a pearl choker, suntan stockings in a shade Conley hadn’t seen since the early nineties, and sensible, lace-up shoes. Her oversize straw pocketbook held a small dog with a matching hairdo.
“Oh, hi, Rowena,” Grayson said, forcing a smile.
“Hello, dear. And here’s this week’s column, right on time, as always,” she said, flourishing a stack of paper before sliding it onto the editor’s desk. She looked around the office. “Where is everybody else?”
“Seems like we’ve got a breaking news story,” Grayson said. “We’ll, uh, have to postpone this week’s meeting.”
“Breaking news? How exciting! What’s happened?”
“Train derailment,” Lillian answered. “You know, Rowena, columnists really aren’t obligated to come to staffer meetings.”
Grayson cleared her throat and shot Lillian a meaningful look.
“But of course, we love it when you drop in,” Lillian said hastily. She picked up the stack of paper and began to retreat from the office. “I’ll start typing this into the system.” She glanced over at her boss. “What do you want to do about the train thing?”
Grayson let out a long sigh. “Damn it. Buddy Bright knew about it before we did? Again? Why do we have police scanners? Why do we bother to call ourselves reporters? All right. Call Michael and tell him to make sure to find out what kind of chemicals we’re talking about. Has the area been evacuated? Do we know if there are any injuries?”
“Buddy said there are ambulances at the scene,” Lillian said. “That’s all I know.”
“Does Michael have the good camera with him?”
Lillian pointed at a black camera bag slung over the back of a nearby chair. “You mean that one right there? No, he thought he was going to the hospital meeting, so there wasn’t any need to take it.”
“Damn it,” Grayson muttered under her breath. “Sorry, Rowena.”
The columnist smiled. “Well, I guess if there’s no meeting, Tuffy and I will head on to our next appointment. The Viburnum Garden Club has a guest speaker all the way from Orlando today.”
She turned to leave. “Give your grandmother my love, Grayson. I guess I’ll see her at the women’s circle next week.”
“I’ll do that,” Grayson said.
Rowena pointed her walking stick at Conley. “And who is this, dear? A new reporter?”
“Guess you don’t remember me,” Conley spoke up. “I’m Conley Hawkins.”
“Conley?” The old woman wrinkled her forehead. “I’m sorry, dear, I don’t recognize that name. Are your people from around here?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Conley said, amused. “I’m Lorraine’s granddaughter. And Grayson’s sister.”
“She was Sarah when she was growing up here, Rowena,” Grayson explained. “Then she went off and got a job at the paper in Atlanta and started calling herself Conley.”
“Of course!” the columnist said. “Of course you’re a Hawkins.” She leaned in closer, peering up at Conley through glasses with tinted lenses. “Oh my. You even have your grandfather’s distinctive nose.”
“Lucky me,” Conley said.
“So nice to see you again, Sarah,” Rowena said, patting her hand. “Tell your grandmother to bring you to the women’s circle, why don’t you?”
Conley watched the columnist make her way slowly through the newsroom. “Seriously, Grayson? Rowena Meigs is still writing that sappy column of hers? Isn’t she like a hundred and two years old?”
Lillian, who was standing directly behind the boss, rolled her eyes dramatically and nodded in agreement.
“It just so happens that our readers love that sappy stuff. They love Rowena, and they love Hello, Summer,” Grayson said, instantly defensive. “They eat up the church picnics and the sip-and-see teas and all that crap. They eat up the gossipy stuff. But mostly they love seeing their names in the paper.”
Conley picked up Rowena’s column and started reading the pages aloud, in a singsongy, cartoonish Southern accent.
“Hello, Summer!” she trilled, in a dead-on Rowena imitation.
Mrs. Myra Womble feted her delightful niece Cheyenne on Saturday with a bridal shower at her charming beach house, SAY LA VIE. Mrs. Womble’s sister Sonya (Mrs. G. W.) Roland was delighted to have daughter Cheyenne Roland back home in the family “nest” for the weekend, and the younger set who “flocked” to the affair enjoyed a yummy repast, including Crab Puffs a la Myra, congealed 7UP salad, and shrimp “mocktail.” Cheyenne and fiancé, Jerrod Corley, will pledge their troth in June at Silver Bay First United Methodist Church … Speaking of our feathered friends, a little bird tells your correspondent that City Clerk Morton Pfansteel will be honored at a retirement ceremony at City Hall next week at 7:00 p.m. A light repast will be served afterward. Morton tells us he and Anita plan to drive their RV all the way to Maine, stopping in Sumter, SC, to visit with grandchildren … Eagle-eyed locals may be seeing much less of a prominent local jurist who shall remain nameless. Our spies tell us said jurist’s wife put her hubby on a strict diet of salads and unsweetened tea, and they’ve even been spotted jogging at Civitan Park on recent mornings!… The Sojourners Sunday School Class at Silver Bay First Baptistt sponsored a fun-filled summer potluck after services this past Sunday. Entertainment was provided by the Praisesayers Gospel Quartet, who visited from Panama City. And now a personal note: your correspondent has noticed, of late, a shocking tendency for young ladies to be “out and about” in attire better suited for bedtime than public. I refer, of course, to the distasteful trend of “pajama pants.” Mothers, you should be monitoring your children’s wardrobes closer than this. And while I’m on this topic�
��young men need to be told to wear their trousers securely fastened at the waist with a suitable belt. The world does not need to see your underpants!
“It’s worse than I remembered,” Conley said, chortling. “It’s like a parody. ‘Pledging troth’? When was the last time anybody ever used that phrase?”
Grayson snatched the papers from her hand. “Like it or not, Rowena Meigs is a community fixture. She also happens to be one of G’mama’s oldest buddies.”
“Oldest biddies is more like it,” Lillian put in. “Of course, Miss Grayson, you’re the managing editor, so let’s not forget, you’re not the one who has to retype that mess into something readable. That old lady can’t spell, can’t punctuate, and can’t get her facts straight half the time. Thinks she’s better than everybody else and her shit don’t stink.”
Grayson sighed heavily. “I realize Rowena’s not exactly a crackerjack reporter, but so what? She’s from a different generation.”
Lillian looked from one sister to the other. “This is like beating a dead horse. Look here, Grayson, what do you want to do about that train derailment? I already slotted the hospital board story for the front page, even though they never actually do anything. You want me to bump it to the bottom of the page and hold to see what Michael comes back with?”
Grayson gazed out the window for a moment. “Remind me what else we’ve got on the front?”
“My feature story on Naleeni Coombs. She’s the girl from Plattesville that got the full ride to MIT. First in her family to finish high school, let alone go to college. She’s a real sweet kid. Goes to my church.”
“Leave the feel-good story on the front, below the fold. I’m thinking a twenty-inch hole for the train thing; we jump it if we can get decent photos on the front,” Gray said. “Bump the hospital story inside. Unless we’ve got dead bodies, then we tear up the whole page.”
Grayson picked up the camera bag and looped the strap over her shoulder, then grabbed her pocketbook from the back of her desk chair.
Hello, Summer Page 4
