“Do you think our photo will be in the paper?” Gail said. “We should’ve asked that reporter to send us a copy.”
“Probably not,” Hanna said, “since we didn’t give our names.”
“You never know what will be considered newsworthy,” Miss Bessie said. “I’ll bet newspapers all over the country picked up Cannonball Man’s story.”
“Just because he picked up the wrong cannonballs,” Sophie said.
“Not funny.” Gail and Hanna said this together. Then they burst out laughing.
By the time they were back in the car, Gail and her family, including Miss Bessie, including Gail’s daughters, who were in graduate school now—one in San Francisco and the other in Chicago—had been invited to Reston for dinner on Christmas day.
And just who was going to be roasting that turkey, making the dressing and the sweet potatoes and the cranberry sauce and the cherry pie? Sophia Lucille Norris, that’s who. Maybe Gail would help out, the way she used to.
Everyone seemed too tired to talk on the drive home. No one even bothered to comment on all the green lights they were zipping right through.
The minute Hanna parked behind their townhouse in Reston, Mel came out to greet them. He’d been worried, hadn’t thought a trip to Richmond would take so long.
“Lots to tell you,” Hanna said to him. “We might even have our picture in the paper down there.”
Gail said she was too tired to drive back to Baltimore and asked if there was a motel nearby.
“Let’s stay here,” Miss Bessie said, squinting up at the streetlights. “These look like nice houses.”
“Mother!” Gail said. “We haven’t been invited.”
“There’s a brand-new sleeper sofa in our basement,” Mel said. “If Miss Bessie and Gail don’t mind sharing a bed.”
From the look on Hanna’s face, Sophie could tell they were both thinking the same thing. In Knoxville, no one had ever asked if they minded sharing that bed in the basement.
Miss Bessie had a different sort of look. “Please. My name is Bessie. Just call me Bessie.”
Sophie was tired, too. She told everyone good night and went upstairs. To the guest room. The guests would be sleeping in the basement.
What an upside-down day it had been! Gail comforting Hanna in front of a restaurant that used to be a gas station. A black tennis champion leading a bunch of slave owners down Monument Avenue. The four of them integrating the colored section of a restaurant. And now Miss Bessie and Gail making up their own bed in the basement.
Back in Knoxville, Sophie had been Miss Bessie’s maid. Seemed like the two of them had a little more in common now. White hair, for one thing. Grandchildren, for another. Maybe even bunions, since they’d both worn sneakers today.
Did Miss Bessie’s heart ever race for no reason?
Bessie, she wanted to be called.
Sophie would try. Old habits die hard.
Acknowledgments
TO THE MANY READERS WHO commented on various versions of this book, eternal gratitude. Each of you, in your own way, improved my telling of the story.
Several readers were especially helpful, the very first of whom was Kim Bradley. Back when I envisioned this as a collection of linked stories, Kim shaped the book in a crucial way by encouraging me to write a story from Hanna’s point of view.
Pam Houston, in a workshop at the 2014 Taos Summer Writers’ Conference, gently suggested that I might be writing a novel. Eventually, I realized she was right.
“The friendship is the story,” John Dufresne mused while discussing my manuscript during his workshop in Taos in 2017. How encouraging it was to hear my intention nailed so succinctly! David Norman, a musician, as well as a writer, completed Del’s song for me.
A year later, after discussing the much-revised manuscript with Hattie Morgan at my kitchen table, I realized that by moving a few scenes around, I could improve the structure. Morgan (as she prefers to be called) prompted me to do some crucial re-thinking.
I am, of course, very grateful to Brooke Warner and her wonderful team at She Writes Press: Shannon Green, project manager; Tabitha Lahr, interior design; Julie Metz, cover design; and Annie Tucker, editor. Thanks also to my multitalented publicist, Caitlin Hamilton Summie. And a heartfelt thank you to my family. My sister, Hope Williamson, pored over the all-important first chapter several times and later read through the entire manuscript with her eagle eye. My son, Brad, who has a knack for recognizing a good title when he sees it, came through once again.
About the Author
Author photo by Jason Poncheri
JILL MCCROSKEY COUPE’S first job was gathering (collating) in her father’s printing plant in Knoxville, Tennessee, in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains. A former librarian at Johns Hopkins University, she has an MFA in Fiction from Warren Wilson College, located in the heart of the Blue Ridge. The Southern Appalachians will always feel like home to her, but so does Baltimore, where she has lived for more than thirty years. Beginning with Cannonballs is her second novel.
SELECTED TITLES FROM SHE WRITES PRESS
She Writes Press is an independent publishing company founded to serve women writers everywhere. Visit us at www.shewritespress.com.
In a Silent Way by Mary Jo Hetzel. $16.95, 978-1-63152-135-5. When Jeanna Kendall—a young white teacher at a progressive urban school—becomes involved with a community activist group, she finds herself grappling with issues of racism, sexism, and oppression of various shades in both her professional and personal life.
Arboria Park by Kate Tyler Wall. $16.95, 978-1631521676. Stacy Halloran’s life has always been centered on her beloved neighborhood, a 1950s-era housing development called Arboria Park—so when a massive highway project threatens the Park in the 2000s, she steps up to the task of trying to save it.
Freedom Lessons by Eileen Harrison Sanchez. $16.95, 978-1-63152-610-7. Told alternately by Colleen, an idealistic young white teacher; Frank, a black high school football player; and Evelyn, an experienced black teacher, Freedom Lessons is the story of how the lives of these three very different people intersect in a rural Louisiana town in 1969.
Stella Rose by Tammy Flanders Hetrick. $16.95, 978-1-63152-921-4. When her dying best friend asks her to take care of her sixteen-year-old daughter, Abby says yes—but as she grapples with raising a grieving teenager, she realizes she didn’t know her best friend as well as she thought she did.
The Rooms Are Filled by Jessica Null Vealitzek. $16.95, 978-1-938314-58-2. The coming-of-age story of two outcasts—a nine-year-old boy who just lost his father, and a closeted young woman—brought together by circumstance.
The Wiregrass by Pam Webber. $16.95, 978-1-63152-943-6. A story about a summer of discontent, change, and dangerous mysteries in a small Southern Wiregrass town.
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