Whistlin' Dixie in a Nor'easter

by Lisa Patton

  Baker used this lull in the conversation to advance to Exhibit B. He must have stopped by the bookstore on his lunch break, because three picture books on Vermont were the next items to emerge from his briefcase. He started flipping through the pages and showing me the pictures. “Look, Leelee, aren’t these beautiful? Have you ever seen trees come alive like this? Remember that time you told me you had always wanted to take a trip to New England to see the fall foliage? Think what it would be like to live there and see it every year.”

  I’m frozen. No, I’m just not hearing him correctly.

  “I’ve always wanted to own my own restaurant. You know that. I’ve managed two or three of them. There’s nothing to it. And you said yourself that waiting tables was one of the most fun jobs you’ve ever had.”

  “Baker,” I said, springing back to life, “I was in college when I waited tables. Yeah, it was fun. But that’s only because Jay Stockley worked there, too. He was president of SAE and I had a big, fat crush on him. Waitressing was not work. It was a way to flirt with Jay Stockley.”

  Baker was so busy looking through the pages of that Vermont book, I wondered if he was even listening to me.

  I put my hand alongside his cheek and turned his head around to face me. “I couldn’t even tell you if Vermont is the little state on the right or the little state on the left, way up there at the top of the map. All I can tell you about Vermont is they make good maple syrup there.”

  “Leelee . . . please,” Baker said in his know-it-all voice, and looked down again at the pictures.

  “What would your daddy say?” I had to dig deep, scramble for anything that might knock some sense into him. “He’s owned Satterfield State Farm for how many years?”

  “Who cares? I never wanted to go into the insurance business in the first place. Never. My dad decided that for me the minute he saw something hanging in between the legs of his newborn baby.”

  I considered what he said, and kind of saw his point.

  “I’m bored, Leelee. It’s time to see the world!”

  “Okay, but can’t we just travel the world? Do we have to move?”

  “Have you any idea what it feels like to wake up every morning, take a shower, shave my face, eat a bowl of cereal, then drive across town to work, where I sit at the same desk, in the same office, and look at the same old-woman secretary who’s constantly telling me, ‘I have more seniority than anybody else in the entire office except Mr. Satterfield Senior.’ Then she looks over at me like she’s got something big on me. I don’t give a shit how long she or anyone else in that office has been there.”

  “Well, it helps with our lifestyle.” I was always careful when it came to talking about Baker’s income. It wasn’t his fault he didn’t have family money. Daddy’s the reason we had what we had—a beautiful home that I’d spent over a year decorating, and a ski boat that was docked at Pickwick Lake, giving us hours of pleasure in the summertime. Dare I mention that my husband was a sportsaholic with a golf and fishing habit that could have bought us a house to go with the boat on Pickwick Lake.

  “But it’s driving me crazy in the process.” Baker was hanging his head now, with his hands on either side of his temples, his eyes closed. If there’s one thing I hate, it’s to see a grown man in agony. I put my arms around him and pulled him over toward me so his head was resting on my shoulder.

  “I don’t want you to be unhappy. I’m happy when you’re happy. But moving all the way to . . . to . . . Yankeeville, I don’t know. I just don’t know about that.”

  “Honey, look, will you just go with me to see the place? You might fall in love with Vermont. Tell me you’ll think about it, baby, please.” He was giving me that look again. And this time his hand was working its way up one leg of my shorts.

  I reached over, pushed it away, and looked him in the eye, my nose about two inches from his nose. “I’ll think about it. But that’s all. And don’t bug me. I’ll let you know when I’m finished thinking about it.”

  “I’ll get you those diamond earrings.”

  “Are you bribing me, Baker Satterfield?”

  “And so what if I am?”

  “I cash in on bribes, that’s what. Now will you please go get me another daiquiri?”

  “They’re good, aren’t they?”

  “Delicious. But making my favorite daiquiri is not going to make me move to a place where the people talk like their noses are stopped up.” I stretched out my legs on top of his.

  “Just consider it. That’s all I’m asking.”

  “All right, all right. I’ll do that much. I’ll consider it.”

  He cut his eyes over at me and smirked. What Baker knew—and what I knew—is that once he got me to consider something, he was usually home free.

  His glass was empty by this time also. Stopping the motion of the swing with his feet, he rose. “I’ll be back.” He leaned over to kiss my lips. Just before entering the house he turned around. “By the way, it’s the little state on the left. Vermont borders New York, not Maine.”

  “Oh, thank you, Mr. McNally.”

  “You’re welcome, Miss O’Hara.”

  “Would you go on and get my daiquiri, please?”

  Falling asleep that night was rough. I lay in bed for hours, staring into the darkness, my husband sound asleep beside me. I wanted to please him. I loved and adored him. And I had for over half my life. But my goodness, this was a tall order. Leaving my home—Memphis, Tennessee—for a place where I had never even stepped foot? Not Birmingham, not Atlanta, not Oxford, Mississippi, even. Baker was talking about moving all the way up to a place where I didn’t know one soul. And, as I would later find out, was a heck of a lot farther away than I ever imagined.

  Chapter Two

  When I awoke the next morning, after very little sleep, I found myself smack dab in the middle of a Folgers moment. The scent of my favorite morning aromatherapy was wafting down the hall from the kitchen to my bedroom, arousing me away from any desire to linger under the covers. This was a landmark moment, too: the first time Baker had ever used the coffeepot. When I heard the sound of his slippers shuffling against the hardwood of the hall and two little giggle-boxes following along with him, I lifted my eyelids just enough to peek through my lashes and out the bedroom door. I could make out the image of Baker, stooped over—carrying something—and Isabella and Sarah on either side of him. They walked slowly down the hall and right up to my side of the bed.

  Baker whispered, “Okay, girls, on the count of three . . . one, two, three.”

  “Surprise, Mommy!” they all chimed, in unison.

  I popped open my eyes to see my little girls jumping up and down and clapping their hands with excitement. “Breakfast in bed! What a surprise. Thank you, girls.”

  “Say thank you to Daddy, too,” Sarah said. “He made the food part. I folded the napkin and put on the fork and spoon.”

  “I did, too!” added little Isabella, distressed that her sister had not included her in the deal.

  “Thank you, Daddy. What’s the occasion?” I teased him with a wink.

  “Can’t a man make breakfast for his wife without her becoming suspicious of his intentions? Hey, a good innkeeper needs to know how to make a knockout breakfast.” Baker began pointing to each item on the tray. “Here you have your gourmet coffee, cream and sugar. And your fresh-squeezed orange juice. Over here—pancakes with real Vermont maple syrup . . . and finally, fresh blueberries and cream.”

  “Innkeepers really do knock themselves out, huh?” I sat up and propped the pillows behind me. Sarah crawled up on our antique four-poster canopy bed—my great-grandmother’s bed—and flipped on the TV with the remote.

  “Breakfast is very important at an inn.” Baker placed the tray on my lap. “It’s the meal that keeps people returning to the same B and B year after year. That and the hospitality of the innkeeper.” Issie raised her arms and Baker lifted her onto the bed, where she nudged her way in between her sister and me.

&
nbsp; “I can see that.” I hesitantly sipped a taste of Baker’s maiden cup of coffee. “I certainly wouldn’t want to spend my money on a place where the innkeeper wasn’t friendly, kind of like I wouldn’t want to go back to a place where the coffee is so thick it sticks to the sides of my mouth.” I couldn’t help making a sour face.

  “Okay, so my joe needs some improvement.” I watched him disappear into the bathroom and reemerge wearing only a white towel that was wrapped around his waist just below his belly button. “How do you like the pancakes?” he called from the door.

  “I always love your pancakes.”

  The bathroom was located directly off our bedroom. Even though his back was to me I could see his face in the mirror and I watched him lather his cheeks with shaving cream. There was something so gorgeous about him when he was shaving—his dark hair contrasted with the white cream and his blue eyes twinkling in between. “You’d make a wonderful innkeeper.” He raised his voice a little to be heard over the sound of the TV.

  “I would?”

  “Yeah, you would. You’re friendly and you’re nice to everybody. That’s exactly what it takes.”

  I knew he was right about the innkeeper part but dead wrong about something else. “I probably would make a good innkeeper but you’re forgetting something pretty important. I’m not the greatest cook in the world.”

  He stopped shaving and walked over to me. Your body is as beautiful as it was the first day I saw you in your bathing suit at Linda Yoder’s pool party, fifteen years ago.

  “So what? That’s no big deal. You can cook breakfast, can’t you?”

  I shrugged my shoulders and nodded in agreement with him.

  “Listen. This inn I’m looking at is a four-star restaurant. The evening meal is prepared by a real chef. You know, culinary trained and all.” Those arms were just a-waving all over the place and he still held his razor in his hand. “Remember when I was the assistant manager of the Copper Cellar near campus in Knoxville?”

  “That was before we were married, remember?”

  “We had a basic menu—nothing too fancy—and the check averages weren’t even that high. But that place made a fortune. The spot I’m looking at in Vermont is a fine dining restaurant with high check averages.” He turned and headed back to the sink. “I’m jumping in the shower. I’ll talk to you more about it when I get out.”

  It had been a long time since I had seen him that happy.

  After he had showered and dressed he walked back into the bedroom to finish knotting his tie. He stretched way across me and kissed Sarah and Isabella. He kissed me, too. “What are you doing today?”

  “Taking Sarah and Issie to Mother’s Day Out. Then I’m going to Seessel’s to pick up some groceries, planting the rest of the lilies that Virginia gave me, and . . . meeting the girls for lunch at twelve thirty.” Actually, this last appointment was not scheduled, but it would be; we had much to discuss.

  “Well, tell them hey, and have fun. I’ll call you after I talk to him.”

  “Talk to who?”

  “Ed Baldwin. The Vermont real estate guy.”

  “Oh yeah.”

  No sooner had he reached the back door than the phone was in my hand. I wasn’t sure who to call first—Virginia, Alice, or Mary Jule, my three very best friends in the whole wide world. Wait ’til they hear what my husband is cooking up now, I thought. Nothing he did would ever surprise them. They had all known Baker as long as I had.

  Thank goodness it was Wednesday. All my friends’ children were with mine in Mother’s Day Out on Wednesdays. It would be no problem getting everyone to meet me at the country club for lunch. I didn’t reveal the reason for this little emergency get-together on the phone. I only said that I had something big to tell them. They’d think I had found out some major scoop about who was sleeping with whom, or maybe they’d think I was pregnant again. But there was no way they would have guessed this news.

  I dropped the girls off at the church, floated through Seessel’s, and drove back home all inside a cloud. I could not stop thinking about the night before. It was the strangest feeling. Surreal almost. Did my husband actually come home and suggest that we up and move to Vermont? A place that I couldn’t locate on a U.S. map with 100 percent certainty to save my life.

  As soon as I got home, and still in a fog, I headed straight outside to plant my lilies. I love to garden. It’s my special time with myself. My mind breaks into heavy problem-solving mode. It’s also my time to talk to God. Something about digging my fingers through His rich soil keeps me in touch with who’s truly in control.

  I could already feel my mind shifting into gear when I picked up the shovel and slammed my foot down onto the foot ledge, hearing that first crunching sound of the ground breaking. He must be out of his mind for considering a move to the North.

  Never in my wildest dreams would I have ever believed that I’d have to decide whether or not to leave Memphis, Tennessee. Heck, no one left Memphis by choice. Almost everyone I knew was born in Memphis, just as I was. Virginia, Mary Jule, Alice, and I were even born in the same hospital, we started kindergarten together on the same day, and I bet we’ve gabbed on the phone almost every day since. I couldn’t imagine ever moving away from them. We were closer than sisters.

  We watched our childhoods fly into adolescence and our teens revolve into our twenties. From double-seat panties and ponytails to pimples and pom-poms, these girls and I were joined together at the hip. If our parents only knew how many times we snuck out in the middle of the night together. There’s not a one of us who can’t recall the exact boy who gave each of us our first French kiss. Our daddies strutted us down the aisle at the country club debutante ball, the winter of our freshman year in college. All of us share the same collection of taffeta bridesmaid’s dresses and dyed-to-match pumps. When every one of our babies was born, we took over the waiting room at Baptist Hospital and held a hen party for as long as it took the new arrival to show up. You couldn’t give me one million dollars for the trunk of memories we share.

  I’m convinced going to an all-girls school for thirteen straight years is the reason we’re so thick. According to a certain group of people it was the finest all-girls school in town. It had been around since the late 1800s and generations of old-money families filled the pages of the yearbooks. Miss Jamison’s School for Young Ladies. That was actually the name of the school when it started way back in 1882. I don’t think they changed it until 1970. Then, to keep up with the evolving times, the name was shortened to The Jamison School. We had to wear short white gloves whenever we went on a field trip, and curtsy to the teachers when they walked in the room. Chewing gum meant an automatic Saturday School, and if you were caught sitting on a desktop you might as well start marching yourself straight to our principal’s office, where Mrs. Carrington would remind you that Miss Jamison’s young ladies did not sit on desktops.

  Virginia and I roomed together every year at Ole Miss. We both pledged Chi O, and when we got to move into the sorority house our bunks were right next to each other. Once we graduated and moved back home, we found a house to rent and Alice moved in with us. Mary Jule was already engaged. Al Barton stole her heart in college and they were married the June after graduation. She was also the first to have a baby and we all made over that child like Fred and Ethel did over Little Ricky. Now she’s got three more babies and I wouldn’t be surprised if she went for a fifth.

  The grinding of the city garbage truck distracted me from my thoughts. I had planted twenty-five lilies and mulched nearly all of them, losing all track of time. It was noon already. I dashed inside the house, stripping my clothes as soon as I hit the door, and dropped them in little piles all the way to the tub. There was hardly enough time for a bath. But I was hot and dirty and Daddy would have had my hide if I ever showed up at the Memphis Country Club looking like a filthy ragamuffin. Daddy never left the house unless he was impeccably dressed in a beautiful suit tailored especially for him, a monogrammed shi
rt of the finest Egyptian cotton, and matching overcoat and hat.

  If Daddy were still living, Baker would have never brought up this loony idea in the first place. Daddy was very protective of me. After all, I was his only child. He was commanding and overbearing, but completely in love with Mama and me. When Mama died, he became even more sheltering. Baker steered clear from him as much as he could.

  Alice swears if it weren’t for Daddy, Baker never would have gotten into the Memphis Country Club. I’d never tell Baker that, though. He thinks he got in because he was a great football player. He received a full-ride scholarship to UT and played tight end all four years under Johnny Majors. Hardly a week goes by that I don’t hear about the touchdown he made at the Sun Bowl. But either way, we’re members.

  Driving to the club that day felt strange. I kept looking around at all the trees in the yards and the houses that I had driven by a million times. So familiar, yet I had never taken the time to study the surroundings. Now I was noticing it all—the perfectly manicured lawns in Chickasaw Gardens, the monster live oaks, and the unique architecture of each house. This was my hometown and I had been taking it for granted for thirty-two years. Why in the world should I leave a place where my pediatrician was still in practice and now taking care of my own two little girls? Even the old druggist at Walgreens was still filling my prescriptions. I wouldn’t be surprised if he remembered when I had the chicken pox.

  Baker cannot take all this away from me, I thought. It’s my life, too. I’m tired of how he tries to run everything and give me no say-so.

  That’s it, I thought, I’m not going. I’ll just tell Baker tonight that I’ve thought about it long enough and I’m not going. Case closed. But, there was only one problem with my decision. Baker had a bridle around my heart with a rein that steered me in one direction—his.

  When I got to the club, I hightailed it into the Red Room and found everyone seated at one of the round tables near the back. The main reason we went there for lunch was that it was the only place we could all charge our lunches to our husbands. And before that, it was the only place we could all charge lunch to our daddies. I slithered into the only available seat, fifteen minutes late—as usual.