Whistlin' Dixie in a Nor'easter

by Lisa Patton

  Truth was he knew something I didn’t. He had obviously nosed through my mail because lying right on top of the large stack of catalogs and bills was a letter intended for my eyes only. The word PERSONAL was handwritten next to my name. My kismet lay in the hands of Jeb Duggar. As he passed the stack of mail over to me his whistling got louder and more inflective.

  I clutched the mail to my chest and staggered out to the red-checked dining room, where I slinked down into a chair at one of the tables. There was no stamp; it had been hand-placed in my mailbox. My heart was beating out of my chest as I slowly opened the white envelope with the inn’s return address printed on the back. My small hands shook while I unfolded the one-page letter penned by the man I had loved since the tenth grade.

  By now everyone had congregated around the table next to the one where I was sitting. They weren’t even trying to hide their nosiness. I looked up at all of them and they all nodded their heads in unison, as if to say: Go on, get it over with. Each sat in silence as I read the letter to myself.

  Dear Leelee,

  By now I’m sure you’re worried sick about me. I wish I could have found a better way to break this news to you, but I could not think of a better way to save my life. There’s no easy way to say this but this whole thing with the inn—and us—is not working out.

  I met someone. Actually, she’s not just someone; she’s amazing. I know what you’re thinking. But you’re wrong—you don’t know her. Her name is Barb. She owns Powder Mountain and she believes I’m the guy to turn it around. It’s not that the resort is in horrible shape but she wants to make it the premiere ski resort in Vermont. I won’t be doing any cooking. I’ll be the director of operations—a position I’m much more qualified for in the first place.

  If you’re honest with yourself, you’ll be relieved when you get this letter. You hate Vermont. You hated it from the minute you got here. Now you can finally go home. If I were you, I’d use Ed Baldwin again to sell the place. Hey, he sold it once, he can do it again. Keep the money. It’s all yours.

  I’m not even sure what I want you to tell Sarah and Isabella at this point. It’s not like I don’t love the three of you. I do. It’s just that Barb makes me feel like I’ve always wanted to feel. She loves sports, she loves the outdoors, and best of all she thinks I hung the moon.

  It’s not you—it’s me.

  Baker

  “She thinks I hung the moon.” I echoed his words out loud before folding the letter and placing it back inside the envelope. And no mention of our anniversary. When I looked up, everyone was leaning in toward me, waiting for an answer. Here four strangers were sharing in the most devastating moment of my life, instead of Kissie, Alice, Mary Jule, and Virginia. I barely even knew these quirky people but they were all I had. One by one each of them came up and hugged me like they sincerely felt my pain.

  I knew they were dying to know what the letter said, but I didn’t feel like talking. “Y’all will have to excuse me. I think I need to lie down for a while.”

  I honestly don’t remember much of the next twenty-four hours. I do remember praying to God as hard as I could that it was all a dream and to not let it be true. The faces of my precious little daughters peering at me from my side of the bed are vivid in my mind. The voice of Roberta calling to them from upstairs rings a bell. My soul felt like it had left my body and I could no longer feel my flesh. When the nighttime came I remember screaming out to God and Daddy, Mama and Kissie and anyone else who would possibly listen to “get me out of here.” I was weak, so weak that I lay motionless in the bed. I began to fall into a tunnel that kept getting narrower and narrower, deeper and deeper. There seemed to be no end to the tunnel. Only a dark, bottomless pit. I prayed to God for peace and slumber. He answered and with His mercy I slept.

  Roberta was upstairs in our apartment with the girls when I finally stumbled out of my fog.

  “There’s your mommy, girls. I told you she wouldn’t sleep all day.”

  “What time is it?” I peered out the window at the gray, overcast April sky.

  “Three thirty.”

  “Three thirty! My gosh, I’ve been asleep longer than I thought. I never ate lunch.”

  “Lunch, dinner, breakfast, and lunch again. Hon, you’ve been in a state of shock. Been in your room goin’ on twenty-six hours now.”

  I sat down on the wicker sofa in the sitting room, outside the bedrooms.

  “Are you okay, Mommy?” Issie jumped in my lap and covered me with kisses. “Me and Sarah tried to wake you up. You were sleeping tight.”

  “Yes, baby, I was sleeping tight. But I’m wide awake now.” One look at Sarah’s little face jolted me back to reality. “Sarah! How’d you get to school?”

  “Roberta.”

  I glanced over at Roberta with both “thank you” and “I’m sorry” written all over my face.

  “We’re going over to Erica Grover’s house,” Sarah said, crawling up on my lap to join her sister. “Is that okay? Roberta said it was okay. Mrs. Grover will be here any minute.”

  “Pat called a little while ago, and I didn’t think you’d mind,” Roberta said, “seein’ the state you’re in. I thought you could probably use the break.”

  “Yeah, I guess so.” I relented, but it wasn’t without alarm. The thought of another mouse helping itself to my daughter’s dinner was enough to push me on over the cliff.

  Pat Grover was rapping on the door five minutes later. I thanked her for inviting the girls and told her I’d pick them up in a couple of hours. I watched from the window as they sloshed through the leftover snow and crawled into Pat’s Subaru. Stay away from chocolate cake, I should have reminded them, but I couldn’t say it.

  While I was talking with Pat, Roberta must have slipped into my bedroom to make up the bed. When I saw what she had done, I gave her a huge hug and broke down crying all over again. She was taking care of me.

  “Guess what, Roberta?” I reached across the bed to the windowsill and grabbed another Kleenex. “It doesn’t look like Baker’s coming home at all.”

  “I heard.”

  I whipped my head around. “You know about Baker? How? Is it on the scanner? Don’t tell me it’s been broadcast all over southern Vermont already.”

  “Oh, it’s been broadcast alreet, but I didn’t hear it on the scanner. Heard it from Betty Sweeney.”

  “Betty Sweeney! How does she know?” Upon hearing that, my tears stopped, and with arms flailing I thrashed out into the sitting room.

  Roberta was on my heels. “Well, I’ll tell you. Betty got an earful when she filled up her car at George’s this mornin’. Called me as soon as she got to the town clerk’s office.”

  “Don’t tell me that. How in the world does George Clark know already?”

  “George told Betty that a certain Ford Explorer with a Tennessee tag stopped for gas two days ago. Some buxom blonde was driving and paid for the gas with her own credit card. George recognized the name right away.”

  “Was her name Barb?”

  “Yuup, Barb Thurmond.”

  “Does George know her?”

  “Not personally, but he knows of her. She’s a rich divorcée. Her ex is a powerful man on Wall Street and she got Powder Mountain in the settlement. Seems her and all her rich friends from New York City been skiing at Sugartree for years. George says she’s got more money than God.”

  “Really? More money than God, huh?”

  “Yuup. George also told Betty that Barb Thurmond looks amazing for fifty and—”

  “Wait a minute, she’s fifty!” I threw my arms up in the air and fell out on the sofa.

  “Yuup, but George swore she looks closer to thirty-eight.” Roberta put her hand aside her mouth, leaned down toward me, and whispered, “Thanks to a skilled surgeon in New York City.”

  “HOW WOULD HE KNOW THAT?” I shrieked.

  “He’s got his sources.”

  “I don’t know what’s worse. The fact that she’s fifty or that I live in a t
own where the gas station owner is privy to the fact that she’s had plastic surgery!” I held my face in my hands. “This can’t be happening.” And what galaxy am I visiting again? My husband has just left me for a fifty-year-old Yankee divorcée with tons of money, counterfeit bosoms, and a fake face? Alice Garrott will never survive the phone call. “Don’t tell me anything else, Roberta, I don’t think I’ve got the stomach for it right now.” Roberta followed me as I stumbled back into my bedroom.

  “Of course you don’t,” Roberta said, rubbing my shoulder with one hand and digging at her bottom with the other. “Say, I’ve been thinking. You don’t need Baker. You’re going to make it just fine. You’ve gut all of us; we’ll help you make a go of the place.”

  “That’s sweet of you, but I can’t even think about making a go of the place. I just wanna go home. That’s all I’m thinking about. It’s the only peace I’ve got right now.” I crawled back on top of my bed and turned around to face her. “Please understand. It has nothing to do with you, Jeb, or Pierre. Y’all have been very kind to me. It’s just that I don’t belong up here.”

  “Why, sure you do.” Roberta could hardly fit in between the bed and the wall. Her right hip scraped against the footboard as she bent down to pick up my tennis shoes on the floor.

  “This is not my home. I feel like an interloper trespassing on someone else’s property. Surely Ed Baldwin, the real estate tycoon, can hang one more Sold sign in the yard by the time we open for the summer season.” Just thinking about going home made the stress subside a little.

  She stood back up and backed her way to the closet, placing my shoes on the floor behind the curtain. “Ed’s the guy to make it happen.”

  “I might need your help with the girls over the next couple of days. I’ve got a lot of planning and packing to do. And so many phone calls to make. Are you busy?”

  “Pooh. What are you talkin’ about? It’s Mud Season. I can use all the extra money I can get. Moe’s not working during the Thaw, neither. You have to moonlight in Vermont or starve!”

  ______

  Okay, who to call first? Virginia? Alice? Gosh no, I may never hear the end of the ranting and raving. It’s Mary Jule. She won’t be happy with Baker one bit, but she’ll at least be sweet about it.

  Then it dawned on me. Kissie was the person I really needed. Dialing her number, the sickness in my gut returned and the tears sprung up again as soon as I heard her soothing and familiar “Hello.”

  “Kissie.” I struggled to get her name out.

  “Is that you, baby?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “What’s makin’ you cry, baby? Tell ole Kissie what’s wrong.”

  “It’s Baker.”

  “Baker? He sick?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Then what’s wrong with him?”

  “He’s gone.”

  “Gone? Where to?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “No, but I know this. He’s got a girlfriend,” I wailed into the phone.

  “A who?”

  “A girlfriend,” I cried.

  “You don’t mean it? Lawd have mercy alive, baby. Somebody need to kick his backside good and hawd ’til his brain start up again. Your po’ daddy and mama be turning circles in their caskets if they knew what Baker be up to.”

  “Are you ready for the most unbelievable part? She’s fifty!”

  “Now I know you pullin’ my leg.”

  “Nope.” Nope? What was I saying? One change of a vowel and I’d be sounding like a Vermonter. Get me outta here.

  “What could Baker want with a woman sixteen years older than him?”

  “Money. She’s filthy rich. You know what, Kissie? Daddy might have killed Baker if he were still alive. Can’t you just see Daddy now, busting into Satterfield State Farm and letting Mr. Satterfield have it? As if Mr. Satterfield would have had anything to do with it. They’d be duking it out and rolling around on the floor.”

  Kissie let out one of her infectious, hearty belly laughs that I’d grown to love so much. It made me fall out laughing, too, and I felt a tiny bit better.

  “Can’t you just hear Daddy? ‘Sattafield, that no count son of yours has messed with the wrong man.’ ”

  “He’d be all talk. Your daddy wouldn’t have the foggiest idea what to do in a fight.”

  We talked for more than an hour and as always Kissie made my spirits rise. But it wasn’t until I was tucking the girls in that night that I had any real relief at all. Aurora borealis suddenly lit the way to my Southern world. I could be home by Friday! Why should I wait? There was no one to stop me. I could make all the listing arrangements with Ed Baldwin from home in Memphis just as easily as I could from Willingham.

  Now there’s no need to phone my friends at all. I’ll just surprise them instead. Let’s see, if I hurry I can be home for Virginia’s birthday. I’ll show up, unannounced, at her birthday lunch at the club. Woohoo! The girls and I are out of here tomorrow.

  I found my suitcases up in the attic. While I was packing I decided to call Kissie back to let her know I would be home in three days. I was practically singing this time when she answered.

  “Guess what, Kissie.” I didn’t even stop to say hi.

  “What is it, baby?”

  “I’m coming home!”

  “You don’t mean it.”

  “I’ll be there sometime on Friday.”

  “How long can you stay?”

  “The rest of my life,” I told her, dancing into the sitting room to empty out my drawers.

  Kissie started to laugh all over again. I explained my plans about handling everything from Memphis. She let me blow off more steam and quietly listened to every word I said.

  “I just can’t wait to get home,” I told her, certainly not expecting her next response.

  “No, baby, you cain’t come home yet. You not suppose to run off and leave things the way they are now. You suppose to get your business straight first. Your daddy done worked too hawd for you to run off and leave behind everything he lef’ you. The time is not right.”

  “But Kissie,” I pleaded, “I can always come back and get my furniture later. And besides, at this point, I don’t care about the business. I just need you and Virginia and Mary Jule and Alice. I’ve got to come home, Kissie, I can’t stand it here a day longer.”

  “My people always tol’ me, ‘You can stay in Hell a little while, long as you know you’re gettin’ out.’ You won’t be there forever, baby. But you cain’t leave all your fine things up there in Vermont. Not your business, neither. Now don’t you be feeling sorry for yourself. It don’t help a thing. Your daddy always tol’ you, you was a fighter. When you was a little girl, he used to say, ‘Leelee be destined for greatness, she can do anything she puts her mind to’ and you can! Now you go on and get your business straight first, Memphis ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

  We talked a little while longer and I finally told her good night. Somewhere, in a far-off corner of my mind, something told me she was right. I didn’t want to hear it, though, least of all from her. I wanted to hear her say, Come on home, baby, you don’t belong up there nohow. It’ll be okay; Kissie take good care of you and your little girls. Oh God, Kissie, I want you to take care of me, just like when I was a little girl. I need you now more than ever.

  I could hear Daddy’s voice, too, somehow echoing Kissie’s words of wisdom. “My baby’s a fighter. Don’t let anyone get the best of you. You can get through this, pull yourself up by your bootstraps and be somebody.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “Surely nor’easters don’t come in April.” That’s what I told Roberta when she called to report the weather forecast on April 22. She said, “Nor’easters usually don’t come in April, but you never know.”

  Pierre was in France, Roberta was at home with Moe, and Jeb had ventured over to Maine to visit some relatives. The only people that were left at the Vermont Haus Inn were my little
girls and me. And Princess Grace Kelly, of course.

  When the four of us woke up Monday morning, I took one peep out the window and through the top left pane I could see only glimpses of life on the outside. Trees, rooftops, and telephone poles were my only proof that I wasn’t living in Antarctica. There was at least four more feet of snow camped out at my doorstep. Thank God the door swung inside or I swear we would have all been housebound until May.

  And with Jeb out of town, my driveway would not be getting plowed. I called his house anyway, hoping Mrs. Duggar would tell me that Jeb had come back from Maine early. Instead she gave me the number of a Bud Duke, another woodchuck in town, who “might be able to help yous.”

  I called immediately; my girls were hungry for breakfast. A woman answered the phone and tried to size up the situation. “Bud’s been out since three this morning trying to keep up with the snow. If he had known you was out there, he would have plowed you two or three times already. Goin’ to be quite a job to clear the snow for you now. But I’ll get him on the radio and let him know he’s gut a new customer.”

  “Thank you, I really appreciate this. Jeb Duggar usually plows for me but he’s out of town.”

  “We require at least three foot of clearance around your car. Make sure it’s done ’fore he gets there, Bud’s on a tight schedule.”

  “Will do and thank you,” I said, and hung up. I wasn’t sure what she meant so I called her right back. “Hi, it’s Leelee again, sorry to bother you, but I’m not really sure what you mean about making sure my car’s got a three-foot clearance.”

  “Ain’t it covered in snow?”

  “Yes. Well, actually, it’s buried in the snow.”

  “Then you’ll need to shovel around it so the plow can get up to it, won’t you?”

  You don’t have to be so rude about it. “That makes sense,” I said. “I was wondering, though, do you think he’ll be here any time soon? I have to feed my children breakfast, and I’ve run out of milk.”