by Erica Hale
“Saturday is good for me. I’ll get the boat ready and you tell your son to talk up the trip. Tell him to make it sound like the best thing on earth,” Leland said. “Now I gotta work my end.”
“It will be easy.” Ernest’s inebriated speech made it harder for the group to understand. “Coloreds are hot in the pants. You pay her a bit more of attention and you won’t be able to shake her off.” He swayed. “They will give you their last if you ask for it, that’s how they are breed and if she don’t--” Ernest pouted his lips and brought his shoulders to his ears. “You just take it.”
★★★★★★★★★★
“Hey, Mom."
“Lauren? Baby, I almost forgot that I had a child. The way that you ran off in the middle of the night, taking my grandchild to the ends of the earth. Only to call me when you got ready. You had me and your father worried sick. And don’t you roll your eyes at me, either.”
She caught me in mid-roll. “Mom, I told you and Dad that I was going to Georgia at least a month before I got in the car. Remember I texted you guys when I got to California, then I called you when we got to Texas. Then when I got in the house. You know I’ve been busy trying to get the house straight. And start my new job.”
“Mmmhmm. Whateva. I miss my little funny faced girl. Now who am I going to go shopping with on Saturdays? Now who is going to remind me to take my high blood pressure pills? You leave me all by myself with this silly man. Lauren, come home.”
I knew my mom was joking, but that last part was a knife in the gut. “Mom, like I told you and Dad, I will be down here to work. It’s a great opportunity for me and Ant. My job is great and has a wonderful chance for growth. At the Seattle Voice, it was stifling. I’d been there for years and my boss isn’t the brightest bulb. It was time.”
“You told me this all before and I understand that you want to be your own woman, but you couldn’t be that just the next state over? You had to go to the other side of the country, with my grandchild. How is he holding up down there? Is he going through culture shock?”
“He’s doing great. There is a kid his age that lives across the street that he’s been hanging out with.” I held back the fight intentionally. There was no need to get Mom's blood pressure up without me there to remind her to take her pills. “All in all, everything is good, but it is an adjustment. Time change, the accents and the slang words. It’s all something to get used.
I was still sitting in my car across the street from the largest structure in Planters. It was a four-story building with my job on the third floor.
“You got the jitters?” she asked me.
I hate the way she could read me.
“A tiny bit. Just like the first day of school. All the kids are looking at your shoes and wondering what cliché you’re going to fall in with. When there are more than five people in an area, a pecking order must be established.”
“Well, I don’t have to tell you that I raised you and your brother as alphas. Now go in to your new job with your head held high and lead like you always do.”
“Yes, ma’am. That is the plan. I’m about to melt sitting in this car in this heat. I need to go in and get this day started. Love you, Mom."
“Lauren.”
“Ma’am?”
“I hope that you have a blessed day, and as long as you are away, I will miss you.”
There was that choke I got again. She always said things that made me want to cry. “I miss you too, Mom."
“And Lauren baby, whenever you are ready, you can tell me the real reason that you are down there. Love you.”
She hung up.
My God, I’m as transparent as a screen door when it came to that woman.
I stepped out in the summer heat and walked as fast as I could across the slow streets of downtown Planters. I hadn’t walked more than fifty feet and I was already sweating. My little pixie hairdo was already starting to lean forward, resembling a shot and wounded animal.
★★★★★★★★★★
“Ms. Neilson comes all from Washington State with a Bachelor’s in Law Ethics and a Master’s degree in Journalism. She was previously employed with the Seattle Voice as one of their columnist and court journalist. We hope that you are delighted to be here as much as we are happy to have you. Everyone welcome Ms. Neilson as our new courtroom journalist and analyst,” my new editor and boss, Franklin Holmes introduced.
The staff of forty crowded around me like I had healing in the palm of my hand. My cheeks began to hurt from the smiling and telling the staff thank you.
“Ms. Neilson, when you have a moment and get situated in your office, may I have a word?”
I shook four more hands and headed straight to his office.
“Yes, Mr. Holmes,” I said, poking my head into his enormous and messy work space. “You wanted to see me.”
“Please, you’re home now, just call me Frank. Please, have a seat.”
I took a seat on the black cushy leather chair and crossed my legs at the ankles. With the excitement of a new job, I still couldn’t keep my eyes open. The mental and physical fatigue bore down on my while I suppressed a yawn.
“When I offered you the job, I really thought that you wouldn’t take it.” My mouth dropped and Frank put his hand out. “Don’t get me wrong, with your credentials you could land just about any gig you wanted. Believe me The Planter’s Tribune is happy that you are here. But one question Ms. Neilson, why? Why here?”
“It’s just Lauren, Frank.” I cleared my throat and ran over everything that I’d rehearsed in my head on my interview a month ago. I again replayed what I was going to say to Holmes on the three-day trip down here and on my commute here.
“Seattle is great. My entire family lives there. I was raised there, but there is something about the South. The heritage, the background, and the culture. I was born here in Georgia and spent my first five years of my life in Atlanta.” I smiled and hoped he bought it. “Besides, my fifteen-year son has no idea what lighting bug are.”
Frank returned my smile and relaxed. “I just don’t want you to get bored. The Atlanta Gazette is a wider known paper, and with a lot of newspaper going digital, it just surprises me that a woman with your background, education and talent would choose The Tribune.”
Frank Holmes was in his mid-forties. He had two children and was twice divorced. The shallow wrinkles in his face projected a man that worked hard and wanted those around him to do the same. I had done my research on him as well as he had done on me.
“I want to reassure you that I’m not settling. I’ve done some looking around and you seem to be the best fit for my style of writing. Your employees gush over you and all I want is a fair shake to give you my best with the best that I have.”
I smiled enough to make my dimples show and prayed that would be enough to calm any fear that I would jump ship.
“Frank, I’m here for The Tribune and here to work for you.”
Angling his body towards mine and resting his elbows on his desk, he said, “Again, I want to thank you and I never doubted your decision.” He smirked. “Maybe just questioned it a little. We are a family here; when one hurts, we all hurt. If you need anything, you let me know.”
I stood and straightened my pencil skirt.
“I promise you that the feeling is mutual, Frank. I’m here as your employee, and hopeful in the near feature, we will become friends.”
I left that comment to hang as I put a little more sway in my hips to the door. With the list of credentials that I possessed, I intentionally missed that I had another Bachelor’s degree. One in communication, specifically in body language.
After getting my password for my computer and for my office email. One email stood unread. Frank assigned me my very own ‘friend’ named Francine. She and I were the same age, which you couldn’t tell. The chain smoking and the heavy drinking aged the woman at least ten years.
By the time lunch rolled around, I was practically begged to go downstairs a
nd go to lunch with Francine. Even with the protest of me having to play catch up from the left behind work load. This woman wasn’t taking no for an answer.
I looked down at my French onion soup as she gave me the tea on every employee that ever worked at the Tribune. Who was sleeping with who, who I replaced, and so on.
“So, are you married?”
The question shouldn’t have caught me by surprise. I’ve been asked this for the last ten years.
“No, I’m not. Are you?” I deflected.
Francine smiled and shifted around in the booth seat. “Well, me and Gary have been back and forth for the last eight and half years. We share custody of our nine-year-old son but--”
She went on to explain that Gary worked at some place doing some type of management across town. The way that she told it was that her son was the best and brightest thing that walked the earth. I guess she’d never laid eyes on Anthony Neilson.
My phone jingled in my purse, I checked the number on the screen and groaned. Francine was still telling me about what the teacher said about the brilliance of her son when I interrupted.
“Sorry, got to take this.”
Sliding out of the booth, I walked fast to the door of the deli into the scouring sideway. “This is Neilson.”
“Were you going to call me when you got down there? I mean, you’ve been there like for what? A week and you haven’t said a word,” Erron Sawyer half whispered, half yelled into the phone. “I was worried about you.”
“Erron, I’ve only been here four days and I was going to call you the second that I got something. Things like this take time. Besides, I’m a big girl and I can take care of myself, thank you.” My mind went back to the last four days of living in Planters and the taking care of myself thing was a stretch. “Look, when I get something, you will be the first one to know.”
I heard him sigh and imagined him being in his office with a glass of scotch, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You really don’t know what they are capable of. If you just listen to this guy talk…the garbage that he spills out his mouth. My God Lauren, get back home and soon.”
“Are you serious? You are the one that put me on this mission and I’m gonna see this thing all the way to the end.”
Whether it be this conversation or the heat, my blouse began to stick to me and my already flat and dying hair was now plastered to my forehead.
“Listen Erron, if the information that you gave me is right, we will be able to get this guy locked up forever. We just have to ride it out.”
“We don’t have a lot of time on this thing, either.” He huffed. “You know that I can be disbarred for this? If any of this gets out, I will be black balled from any law firm in the country. Lauren, you just don’t know.”
“I know well enough. I am putting myself and my son at risk for this. Now put on your big boy draws and man up. I’ll call you if I get anything.” I hit the end button and made my way into the deli.
Reaching for the door, “I got that.”
Leland smiled down at me.
I wanted to scream. “What in the hell are you doing here? Are you following me?” Looking up and down the street.
“Don’t be silly. Planters is as big as a grasshopper’s thumb nail. We were gonna run into each other sometime or another. Let me get you a sandwich or something. Make up for the mess the other night,” he pushed, blocking my entrance to the deli.
I guess if I was another type of woman, knowing that two men were fighting for my attention could make me glad or even flattered. But right now, I had business to take care of.
“Mr. Leland, you don’t have to repay me for anything. What I really need from you is to leave me alone. I’m at lunch now and I would like to finish it.”
“Who were you talking to on the phone?”
I spoke, trying to recover quickly. “None of your business. Now, if you would excuse me--” I was trying to push past him and he wouldn’t budge. “Move…please.”
“It looked rather intense. Man problems?”
“Honestly, yes, and it seems those man problems have materialized right in front of my face. Now, Mr. Leland--”
“Just Leland. How about tonight I pick up something for you and the kid? It won’t be no bother,” he assured, taking his Braves hat off and scratching his brown hair. “I’ll be at Ernest’s anyway.”
I didn’t want to make a scene with the office gossip in ear shot of me and Leland. I took a deep breath and gritted my teeth.
“Today is my first day at my new job and I really want to make a good impression with these people. I appreciated all you have done this weekend, but if you would excuse me I would like to finish my lunch…in peace…alone without you.”
Completely ignoring my request, he continued to block the door. “So, what do you do in this here building?”
“I’m a reporter. Now if you would move--”
“Well, aren’t you all fancy. Forgot that the Tribune was in this building.” He leaned back to get an eye full to the four-story building. “Big city girl come down here to work with us little people.” He smirked. “But good for you. You’re a woman all independent and such, raising a young man.”
He nodded his head in approval like I had asked him for it.
“Now, since you have me pegged, would you mind moving your ass out of the way so I can finish my lunch?”
I stood toe to toe with him and he put his hands up in surrender.
There was a look in his face that I couldn’t quite get a handle on. I knew that it wasn't rejection or hurt. “I reckon I will leave you be then; Lauren have a good lunch.”
Leland let the door close behind him and side stepped me. I saw him look both ways and jogged across the street to his waiting truck.
“OMG, who was that?”
Of all the people in the world to see this interaction, it had to be the mouth of the South, Francine. “He’s my mechanic. I had some car problems over the weekend and he and I just kinda ran into each other.”
“Well, I would love to run into him any day. Here you go,” she said, handing me my lukewarm onion soup in a Styrofoam container. “There are no major happenings today for you, so you can just gobble that down in your office.” Our office space was no more than 20 feet from the deli, but it took eternity for Francine to drag her butt and eyes away from Leland and his truck. “Thought you didn’t have any friends here?”
“I don’t, and I really don’t consider him a friend. Just a guy to help me with my car is all.”
I started to make my way back to our office door and she began to dig into her purse, pulling out a Marlboro Red.
“See, that’s the problem with your city girls. Just don’t have any idea when a man is interested. City girl like yourself, you’re so independent and walking around with your head in the clouds that you have no idea that that man has got eyes for you,” she said, bumping me with her shoulder while a trail of smoke circled around us.
That was the second time in ten minutes that someone referred to me as a city girl. Whatever the hell that meant, I was raised in the suburbs, seconds away from a Dairy Queen and strip mall. Plus, just the thought of this backwater freak taking some sort of interest in me made my empty stomach lurch, but I still took the bait.
“What makes you think so? I mean I don’t even know him.”
That was the door that Francine needed to be opened. She took a long drag of her cigarette and started. “Honey, no man is going to hunt you down, just say hello then go back in his trunk and sulk. He is thinking of something to say to you. I mean, he’s kinda cute, you know.”
I tried to play it off best I could and looked across the street. He was still in his car on the phone. We locked eyes for a second and I gulped.
“Think I should probably go back in and reassure Holmes that he didn’t make a mistake in hiring me.”
I didn’t wait for Francine to stomp out the butt of her smoke or give me any relationship advice.
My heels clicked
on the marble floor and I stabbed the up arrow on the elevator.
It was after four p.m. when I was able to speak to someone at the court house. I would need to be in court bright and early at seven to listen to the docket tomorrow morning.
Unlike Seattle, which had by far a larger crime rate than Planters, the crawl of the town was welcoming. If there was any other way to stay here with Anthony, I would at least think about it. Unfortunately, my home was back west.
Planters did have its purpose, and there was a method to my madness for uprooting my son to come here. It would pay off once all the dust settles.
“Surprised to still see you here.” Frank looked down at his watch, suit jacket draped over his arm. “I’m sure your son is missing his mom.”
I slid my shoes on from under my desk and logged off my desktop. “He probably didn’t even know I was gone,” I said, taking my purse from my desk drawer. The clock on the wall in my office was rounding up to seven.
“I don’t believe that.”
“My son will only start missing me when he starts missing a meal. I pray that there is still food in the house when I get home.”
I stepped out of my office and Frank touched my back, ushering to the elevator doors.
“I really don’t know how to say that I am glad that you are here, Lauren. You and your experience will bring a better, stronger element here to Planters. Most of the employees here have never ventured out of the state.”
I laughed. “Believe me, it’s not like Seattle is some sort of Metropolis, it’s probably just as big as Atlanta. And like I already said, I’m here to work and do a great job no more or less than the next guy.”
The elevator door opened with a chime and both of us stepped in.
It was only he and I in the small space and he was making it smaller by standing flat footed in my personal space. “You know Lauren, I hope you don’t mind me saying you are a very attractive woman.” He addressed my reflection in the elevator doors. “A woman like you should be at home doing whatever she pleases while her man is out making a way of taking care of her.”
What in the hell was wrong with this town? Maybe it is the ‘city girl’ that everyone keeps calling me or the way my mom has told me to always be able to stand on your own two feet.
