“He wants to call it Dreamsville,” Jackie added. “If you can imagine the nerve.”
“Oh!” Priscilla said. “I saw the billboards on my way into town.”
“What billboards?” Jackie asked, sitting straight up.
“They said, Coming Soon—Welcome to Dreamsville, or something like that.”
Jackie, inhaling her cigarette, began to cough.
“Good Lord. They must have just put those up,” Plain Jane muttered. “Priscilla, they didn’t have a photo of Jackie on them, did they?”
“No,” she replied. “Not the ones I saw.”
“Well, that’s good news, at least,” Jackie said, choking through her words. “But nothing would surprise me at this point. Can you believe it? He can call it Dreamsville Estates and the lawyers say I can’t stop him.”
“This is terrible,” Priscilla said. “But what does it have to do with me or Dream staying here at Mrs. Bailey White’s home? I don’t understand.”
There was a noticeable pause. Finally, Jackie spoke. “We think it’s retaliation,” she said. “We’ve been fighting Darryl to try to stop him. His plans are outrageous. He wants to tear down Dolores Simpson’s house and—oh, Priscilla!—it looks like his development might include where your grandma lives.”
Priscilla looked like someone had slapped her. “At the settlement?” she cried out. “I wonder if they know! Probably not. They’d probably be the last ones to find out.”
“They might not know,” Plain Jane agreed. “It had been hush-hush for a while, and it’s happening very quickly.”
“Is there anything we can do?” Priscilla said, her voice rising.
“We’re working on it,” Mrs. Bailey White said grimly. “But by fighting Darryl, we’ve stirred up a hornet’s nest. That’s what Jackie meant by retaliation. We think it’s the reason the town is suddenly asking questions about you and Dream. Darryl has the backing of the mayor and all the other bigwigs in town. It wouldn’t take but one phone call from Darryl to get the town to start harassing us.”
“I suppose it could be a complete coincidence,” Jackie added. “We can’t rule that out. Either way we have to deal with it.”
“There ain’t no such thing as coincidence when it comes to something like this,” Mrs. Bailey White scoffed. “Just follow the trail and it leads to one place: money.”
Priscilla began chewing her nails, something I’d never seen her do before. “Oh, sweet Jesus, what a mess we have here,” she said, her voice low, like her sorrow was between her and the Lord himself, or maybe it was “graveyard talk,” the things you say to a loved one who has crossed to the Other Side.
“I told them that your legal address, and the baby’s, too, is at your grandmother’s house,” Mrs. Bailey White said to Priscilla. “I hope I did right.”
“Why, of course you did right,” Priscilla said. “You’ve all done right. More than right. But I don’t know what we should do now.”
“Well, before you get any more upset, let me tell you about my idea!” Jackie said. She didn’t quite grasp that her ideas were not always joyfully met, but we were desperate for any kind of hope, so we latched onto it. “The clerk said that Dream shouldn’t be living here, right? But she also said, ‘unless you have a license for a school or a home for unwed mothers and their babies,’ or something along those lines. So you see, that’s the solution!”
“What’s the solution?” Priscilla said.
“We open a house for unwed mothers and their babies!” Jackie said triumphantly. “See, we can go through the state and circumvent those idiots downtown. I’ve already had Ted look into it while he’s in Tallahassee. He said it shouldn’t be a problem. That way it would be okay for Dream to stay here and for you to visit! And maybe we could expand—”
“Imagine that,” Mrs. Bailey White interrupted. “My old house, empty for so long, and it could be a place full of life. We could call it the Collier County Home for Unwed Mothers.” I could see that Mrs. Bailey White was hooked.
“What do you say, Priscilla?” Jackie asked, anxiously. “This way we can keep Dream and maybe, at some point, help some other young women, too.”
Priscilla smiled. “Jackie, I admire your faith,” she said slowly. “If you all want to try to make this happen, I won’t stand in your way. It sounds like the Lord’s work to me.”
“I’m on board,” Plain Jane said. “It may not work out, though. It might make things worse, at least in the short term—”
“Then we’ll deal with that if it happens,” Jackie said, cutting her off. The rest of us exchanged glances, and I guessed that we were all on the same page. There weren’t no use in arguing. As Mama used to say, “You can’t reason with crazy.”
Twenty-Three
Priscilla stayed for only one more day; Jackie drove her to see her grandma for a brief visit. Jackie waited in the car, as she usually did to give Priscilla some privacy, but she asked Priscilla ahead of time to check with her grandma to see if she was aware that Darryl’s plans might include paving over the Negro settlement.
Well, they didn’t know, or at least that’s what they said. Maybe they knew more than they were saying but didn’t want to become a target. Sad to say, but it wouldn’t help if they got involved. It wouldn’t bring any sympathy to our side of the fight.
Meanwhile, Jackie was momentarily distracted by something that occurred on the home front. Judd was busy making amends with his lawn-mowing business and got the bright idea that the family could really use a new mower. The one they brought down from Boston was hard to push through South Florida grass. Judd had the blades sharpened but that wasn’t enough. He figured he’d make a deal with his dad: Maybe they could go in on a new mower fifty-fifty.
Before he had the chance to make his case with Ted, he tried a trial run with Jackie. One thing that Jackie did not want to spend money on was a lawn mower. She insisted on demonstrating that the current mower was adequate. The problem was that Jackie had never pushed a lawn mower in her life. She pretended it was easy, all the while struggling to make progress, while Judd stood to the side sulking and drinking a Coke.
At this exact moment, Judd’s classmates rode by on their bicycles. The image of Mrs. Jackie Hart mowing her own lawn in a muumuu and tennis shoes while her able-bodied son stood to the side caused them to stop, stare—and laugh. They took off before Judd could say anything, but the damage was done. At school the next day, Judd was teased mercilessly.
A particularly nasty boy, Calvin Treadwell, saw his opportunity to take Judd down a peg or two. Judd was a star in Civil Air Patrol; this was the root of the jealousy that now expressed itself openly. “Is that what y’all do up north?” Calvin hissed. “You let your mama mow the lawn for you?”
“That’s not what happened; my mom was just trying to prove a point,” Judd had replied, but no one wanted to hear the truth when Calvin’s version was so much better.
Calvin used the opportunity to remind everyone in earshot that Judd was the same “dumb Yankee kid” who ate fried chicken and watermelon with a knife and fork. “He thinks he’s better than us,” Calvin sneered.
It was a cruel reminder to Judd that he was still very much an outsider. “Why does it matter?” he asked me wistfully. Judd had absconded with another melon from home and was helping me slice it for the turtles. “I mean, it was kind of funny, I guess, but why do they always bring up the fact about my being Northern?”
“I guess it’s just ’cause you’re different. I’m different, too.”
“How are you different? You mean because of the turtles?”
I thought for a minute. “Well, the turtles, yes,” I said slowly. “But also, because I’m divorced. Or, especially because I’m divorced.”
“Oh,” Judd said. “So there are some things that are okay. Being the Turtle Lady is fine. Being divorced isn’t. Like being from up north.”
“Yes, I guess some sins are worse than others,” I said, meaning it as a joke but it fell flat. “Look, Judd
, they’re just picking on you, that’s all. There’s always folks who will do that. Not just kids. Through your whole life there will be people who try to make you look small, any way they can, just to make themselves feel big. It’s pathetic, really. But you can decide if they’re going to make you unhappy or not. Ignore it. Laugh about it. You’ll see—it will pass. They’ll move on to something else.”
Sure enough, something did happen. Someone vandalized the Welcome to Dreamsville billboards. On each one, a crude-looking tomahawk had been painted over the head of the smiling man in the illustration. This was so exciting that no one, even Judd’s mean classmates, could talk of anything else.
Of course, speculation began immediately. There were all kinds of theories but the most popular notion was that Seminole Joe had done it himself. It was a warning from the ol’ haint that we were playing with fire.
As for myself, I didn’t know what to believe. In the light of day it was easy to dismiss the idea. Late at night, alone in my cottage, was another story.
Jackie’s reaction was predictable. “Oh, here we go again,” she said. “News flash! It’s not Seminole Joe. There is no Seminole Joe. It’s someone who is taking advantage of the situation. Or maybe it was just some kids being foolish—after all, it’s getting close to Halloween.”
“Is it you?” Mrs. Bailey White asked.
“Of course not! Don’t be ridiculous. Those billboards are set back at least fifteen feet from the edge of the road. Do you really think I would walk back there? And then what—climb up the billboard? With a can of paint and a brush?”
She had a point.
“Well, then, who did it?” Mrs. Bailey White persisted.
“It wasn’t me,” I said, surprised at how defensive I sounded. “Do you think it could have been Judd?”
“What?!” Jackie snapped. “He would never do that. Besides, I asked him this morning, and he said he didn’t.”
“I’m telling you, it’s not nice to make fun of the people around here,” Plain Jane said to Jackie. “They have their ways. You have yours.”
Jackie sniffed.
“You don’t understand it here and maybe you never will,” Mrs. Bailey White said, sounding more than a little cranky. “People have a right to be spooked around here. All kinds of nasty things happen.”
“Like what?” Jackie was nothing if not curious.
“Well, did you know that a corpse turns to bones in twelve hours?”
“Ew!”
“I mean, the whole cycle of life—and death—is sped up here. You got to understand that, Jackie. That’s why it’s so easy for folks to believe in Seminole Joe. Things are different than they seem. This is not a place where folks get second chances. You get lost in the swamp, you’re dead. You get bit by a snake, you’re dead. You go out fishing in the Gulf, get caught in a storm, you’re dead.”
“How cheery.”
“Sarcasm is hardly helpful, Jackie,” Plain Jane said.
“Dora, dear, are you going to pick on me, too?” Jackie said to me, but I could tell she didn’t really expect an answer. She looked away and, with surprising force, ground her cigarette into an ashtray.
Twenty-Four
Two days later, Jackie was in a far better mood. The billboard vandalism had upset folks in a way that nothing else had. Jackie reported a flurry of letters to the editor coming into the newspaper’s office. Not all of them were printed, but Jackie, on the sly, had been reading each one and was keeping a secret tally—for, against, and why. The billboard vandalism was a big boost in our favor.
Ultimately, she hoped to go to Tallahassee with a petition asking the state to intervene with Darryl’s plans. With enough opposition from local citizens, she hoped Dreamsville Estates might be dropped altogether. Still, Jackie admitted that it was unclear if we could turn back the tide.
Meanwhile, Ted had returned from a business trip up north that included a day trip to check out Darryl’s investors. “Ted did some exploring for us,” Jackie said. “Well, actually, of course, he was doing this on Mr. Toomb’s behalf, but he rented a car and drove to Basking Ridge.”
My heart lurched.
“What did he find out?” Mrs. Bailey White asked impatiently.
“He actually got to meet the main investor,” Jackie replied. Then she turned to me. “Dora, I don’t know how to tell you this except just say it straight out. The young woman Darryl is marrying—just as we suspected—is the daughter of the man who owns the investing firm. Her name is Celeste.”
“I bet she’s ugly as sin,” Mrs. Bailey White said with conviction.
“Well, Ted didn’t actually meet the daughter,” Jackie said quickly. “He met with her father and his colleagues for drinks at a country club. It was all very collegial. And Ted said it was a very quaint town, Basking Ridge, and just an hour from Manhattan. Wouldn’t that be lovely? Anyway, that’s all I know right now.”
I realized they were looking at me. “Can we change the subject?” I asked, a bit abruptly.
“I’m sorry, Dora, but I had to tell you,” Jackie said.
“Well, now what do we do?” Plain Jane asked. “That doesn’t sound very promising in terms of using it against Darryl. I mean since his investors seem on the up-and-up.”
“Well, it would be great if it turns out they’re corrupt in some way,” Jackie said cheerfully, “but it almost doesn’t matter.”
“How can it not matter?” Plain Jane asked uneasily.
“Because I’m going to use it against them anyway.” She refused to say anything further but her column the next week provided an answer.
* * *
YANKEE CASH TO PAY FOR DREAMSVILLE DEVELOPMENT?
Neapolitans, sources suggest that Mr. Darryl Norwood’s real-estate development is being quietly funded by a wealthy investor who resides far north of the Mason-Dixon line—in New Jersey, in fact. While the investor and his colleagues appear to be aboveboard, should it not raise the question about the future of our beloved Naples?
* * *
This angle was both shameless—since, after all, Jackie was a Yankee herself, through and through—and brilliant. If there was one thing you could count on, it was folks’ distrust of rich Northerners.
“Now I see how they won the war,” Mrs. Bailey White said, with grudging admiration, to Plain Jane and me. “Yankees will throw their own kind off a cliff to get what they want.”
The column raised alarm bells and sparked the ire of the Collier County Sons of the Confederacy, one more important group now squarely in our back pocket. Jackie’s new estimate of letters to the editor was 50 percent in favor of the development compared to close to 90 percent just two months before.
While I was pleased with Jackie’s progress, it was anyone’s guess if her plans would actually work or how long they would take. The fact was I needed to get back to Mississippi or I’d have no job at the library and no rented room at Mrs. Conroy’s. It was late October 1964. It was time to fish or cut bait, or, in other words, stop postponing.
Jackie and the others knew I had to leave. But someone—and, unfortunately, that person was me—needed to inform Dolores Simpson. I could have gone away without saying good-bye to her, I suppose, but I knew I’d never be able to live with myself. She deserved to hear that even if I hadn’t been successful, I had tried. Sometimes, that had to be enough. And, surely, it counted for something.
But I sure wasn’t looking forward to saying that to Dolores. I’d stood up to her and survived but I wasn’t sure my luck would hold a second time. To be honest, I was still scared to death of her.
I decided I should bring a present—an apology of sorts—so I spent hours making Mama’s homemade biscuits. I took a basket that I’d used for picking flowers and filled it with the biscuits and a small ham I bought at the Winn-Dixie. Even though I was sure that her son, Robbie-Lee, must be sending her money when he could, she was not likely to spend it on luxuries like meat.
When I arrived and she saw the basket, she knew it
was either a celebration or a farewell gift. A glance at the guilty look on my face, and she knew which one it was.
“So, you weren’t able to stop him,” she said gruffly. I watched her hands as she worked with a tool the size of a nail file on a flat piece of pine. It took me a moment to realize that she was making a sign.
“I didn’t know you were such an expert woodworker,” I said.
“Oh, girl, there’s a whole lot of things you don’t know about me,” she said, without looking up.
“What’s your new sign say?” I asked.
She turned it around and held it up for me to see. It read Trespassers Will Be Shot, except one letter was out of place so it actually said “Trepsassers.”
“Well, now,” I said, “that’s what I call a mighty friendly sign.” I said nothing about the error.
“Just want to warn folks off, fair and square, if they come snoopin’ around here. Like your Darryl, for example. I’m half expectin’ him to show up at any time—”
“Like I told you and everyone else, he’s not my Darryl!” I said. “Not anymore.”
“Well if he comes ’round here he’s likely to get his head blowed off,” she said with a sniff.
“Look, Dolores, I’m here to say I’m sorry,” I said wearily. “I’m going back to Mississippi. But I wanted you to know that I tried. I really did.” I set my present of ham and biscuits down beside her.
“Thank you,” she said. “For that there present. And—thank you for trying.”
“Well, I’m a-gonna go now,” I said. “Next time I’m back, I hope to get to see Robbie-Lee. I hope he comes home to Collier County by then.”
She shrugged. “Don’t know if we’ll ever see that day.”
“I’m going to write to him to let him know what’s going on,” I said. “He would be here helping you if you told him the truth.”
I expected her to say, “Don’t you dare.” But instead she muttered, “Suit yourself.”
Miss Dreamsville and the Lost Heiress of Collier County Page 15
