The Road to Testament

by Eva Marie Everson

  Yes. And she still was.

  “Wow,” I finally said, when nothing else came to mind. “So . . . what does this mean? Exactly.” Because I could guess . . . and if I were right, all the work, all the laying of the foundation of my career, would finally allow me to reach the first part of my goal.

  Dad cleared his throat. “Well now, that’s why you’re here.”

  I had thought as much.

  “With Mother leaving the magazine, I’ll move up to Editorial Director . . .”

  My heart hammered in my chest. Oh. My. Goodness. Finally.

  The promotion I’d worked my little fingers to the bone and my stiletto heels to nubs for. I would take Dad’s position as Editor-in-Chief of one of the most prestigious local-color magazines in the entire state of Florida. Perhaps even in the United States.

  I sat straight, ready to hear the rest of what my father had to say. But when he said nothing, I looked first at Gram, then back to him. “I assume you are about to tell me I’ll take your position?” I tried not to gloat.

  Dad’s elbows continued to rest on his knees. He cracked his knuckles, an irritating habit both Mother and I typically chastised him for. For now, I chose to stay silent on the subject. “That depends,” he said.

  “On?”

  Gram shifted in her seat. “On how you do.”

  “Do what?”

  “Not do what, dear. Do where.”

  “Where?”

  “So glad you asked. Testament.”

  “Testament?”

  “North Carolina, darling. You’ll love it. Start packing.”

  2

  My eyes widened. “What . . . in the world . . . are you talking about?”

  Dad looked to his mother.

  “I suppose,” she said, “I should explain some things to you.”

  I didn’t respond. One thing I’d learned from Gram was the importance and power of listening.

  “When Richard and I started in the business, we worked in the most charming little town up in North Carolina.”

  “Testament . . . ,” I supplied, guessing, but I knew I couldn’t be wrong.

  “That’s right. Shelton Decker and your grandfather served in the army together. They became fast friends. Both wanted to go into journalism when their time in the armed forces was done. They went from Basic to the end of their four years together. All the way. And, when they were done, they married their sweethearts . . .”

  “You being one of them.”

  “Yes. And Barbara—we called her Bobbie—Shelton’s wife, being the other.” Gram’s gaze seemed to drift far away to another time and place. “We went to Testament, North Carolina. It had been Shel’s birthplace, you know.”

  No. I didn’t know. The only thing I really knew about the early years of Gram’s life with my grandfather was that they’d started a small magazine together with friends in North Carolina. And that eventually, the Deckers had wanted to start a newspaper, which came on the heels of my grandfather wanting to return to where his and Gram’s parents lived. Here. In Winter Park. Florida. My home.

  “Oh it was a lovely, lovely place, Ashlynne. All the charm the South has to offer. Simple people. Good people. God-fearing, hardworking.”

  “Simple people . . .”

  Gram slid back in her chair, crossed her legs. “You know what I mean. I’m not saying they aren’t educated. They are. What I mean is . . . well, you won’t find them dashing off to some of the affairs we have around here.” She ran a finger along the jawline of her heart-shaped face. “Although they certainly have their social circles.”

  “Gram,” I said, inhaling before I continued. “What does this have to do with me?”

  Gram looked at Dad, who cracked his knuckles again.

  “Dad, please,” I said, giving him my best don’t-I-look-like-Mom look.

  “Sorry, Kitten. I know it bothers you, but it’s a nervous habit.”

  “Gram, he’s your son. Can’t you stop him from doing that?” And, furthermore, why was he so nervous?

  “Why should I?” she asked with a raised brow. “Your grandfather did the same thing. It’s like having him in the room with me again.” She smiled at her son, who sighed in relief.

  “Let’s get back to the subject, shall we, Mother?”

  “Yes. Well . . .” Gram looked at me with wide eyes. “My darling, you are the heartbeat of my life. You know that.”

  “I do. And you are mine. You know that.”

  Gram’s expression turned poignant. “You see? That, sweet Ashlynne, is the saddest thing you could have said to me. At thirty-two, you seem determined to make the magazine your life, but you never connect with any of your coworkers. You have only one close friend. You have acquaintances but not friends. You hardly date. By now I’d hoped to be a great-grandmother.” She closed her eyes slowly before reopening them. “I suppose I cannot control that. Your rise to position here, however, I can.” She folded her fingers together in a “here’s the church, here’s the steeple” fashion. “What you have in business sense you never seemed to have gained in people sense.”

  I felt my brow furrow. “What does that mean? You think I don’t know people? Believe me, Gram. I know people.” And what I knew typically wasn’t all that wonderful.

  “It means that you need some time away from all that Winter Park has afforded you. You are a recognized fish in the Winter Park pond. But I—and your father—feel it’s time you know what it’s like to be, as the old saying goes, a little fish in a little pond.” She looked at Dad. Sighed. “You will one day—the good Lord willing—sit behind the very desk that is in this office. I want you to have the same marvelous beginning I had.”

  Oh. Dear. Lord.

  “Dad?” I cast him what I hoped was a pleading gaze.

  “Ashlynne,” his voice confirmed, “if you want my current position and—as Gram says—hers one day, you’ll spend six months in Testament. You’ll live with Shelton and Barbara—Bobbie—in their guest cottage. And work for his newspaper.”

  “And,” Gram said, her voice raised in excitement, “help him restart the defunct magazine we began nearly sixty years ago.” She lifted her eyes toward the ceiling. They shone in memory. “Hunting Grounds & Garden Parties.”

  “Hunting and . . . what did you say?”

  Her chin dropped and her eyes were like corrective fingers aimed toward me. “This is exactly what we’re talking about, young lady. You need to learn that life is not all about parks and avenues. And I don’t mean the magazine.”

  I knew that already. Instinctively, I knew she spoke of the lifestyle. I also knew my grandparents’ spunk coursed through every vein and artery in my body. What I lacked in understanding the everyday person, I had in tenacity. “Let me see if I understand you. I spend six months in Testament helping restore a magazine and working for a newspaper. Then I return to Winter Park as Editor-in-Chief.” I spoke the words not as a question, but as confirmation.

  “If you do well there . . . ,” Dad answered before Gram could speak.

  I blinked. I did nothing if not “well.” “Dad. Do well? What does that mean exactly?”

  “If you don’t know, my darling grandchild, I suspect you will learn while you are there.”

  So this would be the way of it. Gram had issued some challenges to me in my career and I’d accomplished each of them with absolute perfection. She knew me probably better than I knew myself and, in the knowing, was betting I’d rise to her dare as well.

  I stood, drawing my five-feet-ten-inch frame to its full height. Almost six in my Ferragamos. Shoulders squared. Back arched. I took several steps around the coffee table, extended a hand toward my grandmother, and cocked a brow. “You’re on,” I said.

  “This isn’t a challenge,” my father said.

  My grandmother had not taken my hand yet, but I left it jutted out as I glanced across my shoulder. “Oh. Yes. It. Is. And, I might add, one I’m fully up for.” I looked at Gram. “Are you going to shake on it, Mrs. Rothsc
hild, or are you going to leave me here looking foolish?” I winked at her.

  She stood, took my hand in her cool one. Squeezed lovingly. “You’ll make me proud,” she said. Her grasp changed to something more serious. She looked up into my eyes. “But Ashlynne, make no mistake. If you embarrass me in any way, upon your return you’ll find yourself working as a copy editor. Or worse. In the mailroom.”

  I leaned over and kissed her cheek. It wasn’t exactly professional and I didn’t care. “You won’t be ashamed of me, Gram. I promise.”

  I went to my best friend—my only friend, if you listened to my grandmother—Leigh’s on Friday evening. She’d hosted a small gathering of friends—mostly hers—to wish me a fond farewell. Everyone else had gone home and, at nearly midnight, only the two of us remained.

  We leaned against opposite sides of the living room window in her Orlando high-rise condo. I looked out, across, and down. From our vantage point, I could see Lake Eola’s nightly fountain show—multicolored water spewing into the thick Florida air.

  “My father’s behind this,” I said to her after several moments of silent contemplation.

  “What makes you say that?” she asked, tucking a curly wisp of hair behind an ear.

  I shrugged. “I just know him. He’s always said I need to be more of a people person. Yet, the one time I tried—and miserably failed, if you remember—”

  “I remember.” Leigh knew my most secret secret. I could think of no need to rehash it beyond this.

  “After that, who would want to be a people person?”

  “I think you’re a people person,” she said in my defense.

  An old sadness washed over me. “No, I’m not.” I swallowed, knowing full well I need say nothing more. “I don’t get most people. How can I? I’ve never shopped where most of them shop. Never eaten in their fast-food restaurants. Never wondered how I was going to pay rent or put food on the table. None of that.”

  “It’s not your fault, Ashlynne, any more than it’s mine. We’re not to blame that we were born in the families we were born in. The proverbial silver spoon and all.” Then she made a face to let me know she didn’t want the end of our evening to go all heavy.

  I smiled weakly. “That’s why I love you. You get me.”

  “I do my best.”

  We were silent for a moment before I raised a finger and said, “But, you know what, Leigh? If my going will make Dad happy . . . if it will prove to him that I’ve got what it takes in spite of not having scads of friends or a date every Friday night, then so be it. Six months will go by like six days. And I can walk with a pebble in my shoe for six days.”

  “And God will rest on the seventh,” she muttered as she looked out the window. “I’m going to be honest. I’ve never even heard of Testament, North Carolina.”

  “I’ve heard Gram talk about her years in the ‘real South’ as she calls it, but I surely never heard of Hunting Tea Parties—or whatever she called it—until the other day.” I smiled at Leigh. “Of course, after my meeting with Dad and Gram, I Googled it.”

  “The town or the magazine?”

  “The town and the newspaper.”

  “And?”

  “The Testament Tribune is a daily paper that serves a county of about a hundred.”

  Leigh’s eyes sparkled. “A hundred?”

  I pretended to sneer at her. “A hundred thousand, you goon.”

  She giggled. “I know.”

  “I know you know.”

  “What did you find out about the town?”

  “Very much a hometown look to it. Dates back to the 1700s.” I looked out over the lake again. “Rolling hills and the Blue Ridge Mountains.”

  “We surely don’t have a hill or a mountain anywhere around here,” she joked.

  “Mount Dora.”

  “Ha. Elevation what?”

  I grinned. “One hundred feet.”

  “How about Testament? How many people live there?”

  I glanced up at the ceiling with its sparkle-strewn paint. “Around five thousand.”

  “You’re kidding . . .”

  “No.”

  “I’d venture there are five thousand people living in our building.”

  I shook my head. “Roughly seven hundred.”

  Leigh crossed her arms over a black Michael Kors ribbed-knit turtleneck. “And just how do you know this?”

  I laughed. “I live here too, remember. Besides, I wrote a piece about it five months ago.” I pointed at her playfully. “Which only goes to show that you do not pay attention to what your best friend is doing at all times.”

  “So, is that it? That’s all you found out?” She gave her best I-don’t-believe-it-for-a-second look.

  “Looks charming. Chimney Rock is nearby.”

  “Chimney Rock? I think we vacationed there when I was a kid once.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Lots of steps to climb, if I remember correctly.” She smiled sadly. “Lawson thought it was some sort of a race.”

  I blinked. Lawson, her twin brother. Gone too soon. “He always did,” I whispered.

  She pouted. “Hey,” she said around a swallow. “I’m going to miss you.” Leigh reached to pull me into a hug.

  “I’ll miss you too.” I pulled away, looked over my shoulder. “I’m going to use your little girls’ room and then make my way up to my apartment.”

  Leigh placed her hands on her hips. “And keep your nose out of my medicine cabinet,” she said.

  I gave her a wicked laugh. She knew well my habit of opening the medicine cabinets and peeking behind shower curtains of every bathroom I walked into. I knew the secrets of hundreds of Winter Park’s and Orlando’s most socially elite, not to mention which shampoo they used. “Oh, Leigh, don’t be silly. I’d already snooped through your medicine cabinet before you even pulled the hors d’oeuvres out of the oven.”

  On Saturday, during my quiet time, I decided the minimum nine-hour drive from Orlando to Testament was more than I wanted to do at one clip. By eleven that morning I had enough clothes and toiletries packed to get me through the first few weeks. After that, when the weather cooled, I’d drive back to Orlando and switch out. I loaded my silver Jaguar XKR-S, leaving no room to spare. Even the passenger seat was occupied. I drove out of the parking garage, said good-bye to the guard, and drove first to Gram’s before a final stop at my parents’.

  Gram was notably upset, which to some degree made me happy. She’d miss me, I knew, as much as I’d miss her. “But I thought we were having dinner at your parents’ tonight.”

  “You three can still get together, Gram. I’ve decided to drive as far as Savannah, get a room in one of those charming bed-and- breakfasts downtown, and maybe even mosey around a little in the morning before I head out. That’ll put me arriving in Testament at roughly the same time as if I’d driven straight through.”

  She patted my hand. “You’re right, of course. Even at your young age, you shouldn’t push too hard. I’d worry the whole time you were driving.”

  “I knew you’d understand.”

  Gram took my hand and drew me from her foyer to her favorite sitting room, an area of the house where the late morning’s sunlight spilled through unadorned windows and onto chintz-covered, overstuffed furniture. We sat side by side on a loveseat flanked by baskets of yarn and crochet needles, magazines, and correspondence she “needed to get to.” She pushed a basket with the point of her shoe and said, “See how full this is? All these letters need responding to.” She patted my hand as she so often did. “Now you know why I must retire, my Ashlynne. I have many letters to write.”

  I couldn’t help but smile at her. Gram was the only woman I knew who planned to retire to write letters. Read. Travel. Get caught up on sleep. Yes. But letters?

  “I see that you do,” I said, mainly for something to say.

  “Before you go”—Gram’s face turned serious—“I want you to listen to me. Your father believes you need help in the people
department. He wants you to find something in common with all those who will work under you.”

  “I know.”

  “So then, I want you to hear this one thing I say to you. If you want to have friends, be a friend. Listen to what others have to say about themselves, about their world, just as you do when you conduct interviews for the magazine.”

  I nodded.

  “Do not simply nod at me and think you have appeased me. Repeat back, please.”

  I swallowed, knowing the price behind the words. All too well. “To have friends, be a friend.”

  “And?”

  “Listen to what others have to say about themselves. Their world.”

  “And don’t prejudge, Ashlynne. You are about to enter a different world in Testament, North Carolina. Open your arms to it, dear child. You might be amazed at what it has to offer you.” She took my hand in hers, kissed it once. “Put that awful event from seventh grade behind you.” She studied me as I blinked back tears. “Don’t think I don’t know it’s always there at the forefront of your mind whenever this type of conversation comes up. It’s that one awful era of your life that has kept you in shackles. Time to let it go. Be who Ashlynne was meant to be.”

  I felt the old ache grip my heart. I had opened my arms to something different once . . . and once had been enough. Still, I smiled weakly and said, “I will, Gram.”

  “Promise me?”

  “I promise.”

  One thing Gram knew for sure, I’d never promise anything I didn’t intend to fully carry out.

  After a half-hour visit, I kissed her powdery cheek one more time, then slipped out the ornate front doors, through the wide portico, and to my waiting car. She stood in the doorway, blew me a kiss. “Remember what I said.”

  I waved a final time. “I will.”

  “And you’ll love Bobbie and Shel,” she called out. “I promise you will.”

  I doubted I’d love them. That would take more of a promise than I was willing to make. Still, I could get along with anyone for six months.

  Yet, even as I bolstered my confidence to succeed, the familiar fear snaked through me. I shook it off.